Google Capital launches with $40m US education investment
GOOGLE took its latest investment arm public yesterday with the announcement of Google Capital and a $40m (£23.9m) investment in US learning analytics firm Renaissance Learning.
The investment is the third for the search giants late stage investment vehicle, following investments in Survey Monkey and Lending Club last year that were not made public.
“While Google Ventures focuses mainly on early-stage investments, we’ll be looking to invest in companies solely as they hit their growth phase,” said Google Capital partner David Lawee. “That means finding companies that have already built a solid foundation and are really ready to expand their business in big ways. We’ll look across a range of industries for companies with new technologies and proven track records in their fields,” added Lawee.
Lawee was previously Google’s vice president of Google Development, where he was responsible for managing the tech company’s acquisitions and investments. During the five year period that Lawee worked there Google acquired approximately 100 companies.
“Google Capital is going beyond that [providing just money to growing companies] and tapping into our greatest assets: our people. They help us succeed, and we believe they can help our portfolio companies do the same,” said Lawee.
Renaissance Learning hosts data for 38,000 US schools and records for 10.7m US students.