Google Ventures slowed its investing this year, but the firm still continued to direct about one-third of its efforts toward life sciences and it sharply increased its consumer focus, according to an update of its activities.
The organization, which is to rebrand itself GV, also is backing away from seed investing and re-organizing its separate $125 million European fund by combining it with its U.S. operations, according to news reports.
GV invested in 39 companies so far this year, down from 57 last year, according to year-in-review update posted on its website. Thirty-one percent of the companies are in life sciences, down modestly from 36 percent last year, but still the largest category of activity.
This year, just under a quarter of companies address the consumer space, up from 8 percent last year. The comparison may be difficult because last year’s breakdown included a separate category labeled “mobile,” which likely included some consumer-focused startups.
Enterprise this year also rose and accounted for 23 percent of activity with “data and AI” another 13 percent. Last year, enterprise and data accounted for 24 percent.
Life sciences, artificial intelligence, machine learning and security are to remain big investment areas in the coming year, the organization said.
According to several news reports, including one on VentureBeat, Google Ventures Europe will no longer operate as a separate entity. the European fund has largely focused on U.K.-based companies.
…this gives us more flexibility and dollars to invest in the best founders and companies, regardless of where they are based….
— Tom Hulme (@thulme) December 7, 2015
This was confirmed by General Partner Tom Hulme, who tweeted that starting in January the organization will operate one global fund, rather than separate U.S. and European funds.
“This gives us more flexibility and dollars to invest in the best founders and companies, regardless of where they are based,” he tweeted.
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