The Google owner committed big money to Lyft and Airbnb as GV increased its late-stage deals, formed an AI fund called Gradient and exited from Snap and Cloudera in IPOs.
Given the reorganisations at Alphabet since it was formed in 2015 to act as an umbrella company for Google and its diversified business interests, 2017 was a relatively relaxed year for its corporate venturing units, though they continued to be active.
The 2015 realignment involved the firm’s early-stage investment arm, Google Ventures, and its growth-stage unit, Google Capital, being formally separated from Google, and they subsequently rebranded as GV and CapitalG accordingly.
GV was particularly active in 2017. Whereas in 2016, the unit’s largest deal was a $95m round for oncology therapy developer Carrick Biosciences, this year it participated in six $100m+ rounds, including the $120m series C round closed by AI insurance platform Lemonade this week.
The largest of those deals was the $130m raised by another insurance innovator, Clover Health, in May 2017 at a $1.2bn valuation, but GV also led nine-figure rounds for immunotherapy developer Arcus Biosciences…
