Google Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of internet company Google, is considering establishing an office in London that would be its first outside the US, The Sunday Times reported over the weekend.
Executives from Google have met with key figures within Tech City, the technology cluster in East London which plays host to much of the city’s technology startup sector, sources told the newspaper. Google Ventures could set up the office by the end of 2014, according to industry sources.
Google Ventures remains one of the busiest investors in the venture capital space, and its investments have included Nest, Uber and Cloudera.
However, the unit’s portfolio is angled quite heavily towards the US, and gaining a foothold in Europe would enable it to gain greater access to a technology sector which has spawned some of the fastest growing digital businesses over the last decade, including Skype, Spotify, Yandex and Rovio.