Google Inc.’s (GOOGL) announced that its venture capital arm — Google Ventures — will open an office in London to fund European start-ups. The company plans to invest up to $100 million for the funding which could be increased over time.
Founded in 2009, Google Ventures focuses on early-stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and others. It has an investment portfolio of approximately 250 companies.
Reportedly, the new branch office will be located in Clerkenwell and the project will be headed by Bill Maris. The London office will comprise five general partners — Eze Vidra from Google's Campus London start-up accelerator; Tom Hulme, a serial entrepreneur; Peter Read, a U.K. investor; Avid Larizadeh, co-founder of Bottica.com; and MG Siegler.
Google has been striving to expand its European operations for some time now. The company remains quite optimistic about the emerging European start-ups and plans to invest in them to benefit from the money generated.
Google Ventures has already established its offices in 21 European countries, including the London campus. Additionally, last month, the tech giant unveiled its plans to open another campus in Warsaw. The campus provides space, mentorship, community and the environment that an entrepreneur needs to succeed.
Recently, many other companies have started investing in European start-ups. Last week, Russia’s Runa Capital announced a $200 million fund, focusing on European technology companies. In June, Index Ventures launched a €400 million investment fund for early-stage technology companies. In 2013, the London offices of Accel Partners unveiled a similar fund worth $475 million.
These investments reflect Google’s diversification plans, which will help it to compete with the likes of Facebook (FB) and other tech companies in the advertising market over the long term.
Currently, Google has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Other stocks that are performing well at the current levels include Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) and Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (RAX). All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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