Bill Maris, the founder and CEO of Google Ventures (GV), the venture capital arm of Alphabet, is leaving the organisation.
Maris is reported to be one of the highest ranking executives to leave in recent times. He was key member in building Google Ventures, which was founded in 2009.
GV has invested in five sectors including consumer, life science and health, data & artificial intelligence (AI), enterprise and robotics. The investments made by GV are worth more than $2.5bn and have been invested in over 300 companies.
Google Ventures is an early-stage funds provider and has invested in companies like Uber, Nest, Slack, Kabam, Walker and Company, Blue Bottle and Jet.com, which was recently acquired by Wal-Mart for over $3bn.
In recent times, GV’s focus has been to invest in health and bio-tech start-ups, which Bill Maris had an interest in. Some of these companies include Editas Medicine, Foundation Medicine, Collective Health, Flatiron Health, 23andMe, One Medical Group, and Impossible Foods.
Google started another investment firm, Google Capital in 2013, which was competing with Google Ventures, even though Google Capital was investing in later-stage companies. Apart from this, Google was also directly investing in companies, which were competing with GV-backed companies.
Bill Maris will be succeeded by David Krane, who has been with Google for over 17 years. He was the first public relations manager at the company and was responsible for day-to-day activities at GV.
Krane had a significant role to play in the investments made in Uber, Nest and Blue Bottle.
Recently, Alphabet had witnessed the exit of Self-Driving Car project chief technology officer Chris Urman and Nest CEO, Tony Fadell , apart from Bill Maris’ resignation.
