Google is launching a new fund "Google Capital " through which it will make later-stage investments in technology companies, a Google executive said Wednesday.
Google Capital will be announced this summer but has already made three investments to date, said Mike Pearson, a general partner at Google Capital, at the Red Herring 2013 conference in Monterey, California.
Google already operates a fund, called Google Ventures, through which it invests in startups working in areas like mobile computing, gaming, big data and life sciences. Google Ventures has funded more than 150 companies to date, including Nest and DocuSign.
While Google Ventures tends to make early-stage investments in companies, the new investment arm, Google Capital, will be aimed at the “growth equity side of the market,” Pearson said during a panel at the conference.
“There are a wealth of people out there doing amazing things and we should be able to leverage Google to empower them,” he said.
One of Google Ventures’ current projects is the Glass Collective, for funding startups that are looking to build products for the Google Glass augmented reality system. Other investments have been made in RetailMeNot, TuneIn and Pocket.
