david lawee

After first announcing its new equity fund for growth-stage companies, Google is officially launching its “Google Capital” today with an announcement on its blog. Google says the fund will “focus on emerging, long-term technology trends” and the companies it’s invested in so far range from companies in the education space to personal loans and a survey platform. Google took some time to explain how Google Capital will differ from its Google Ventures investment arm:

Like our colleagues at Google Ventures, our goal is to invest in the most promising companies of tomorrow, with one important difference. While Google Ventures focuses mainly on early-stage investments, we’ll be looking to invest in companies solely as they hit their growth phase. 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.

Google notes that the fund has already invested in a few companies including SurveyMonkey and Lending Club, as well as Renaissance Learning, which Bloomberg reports Google is putting around $40 million into. 
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Motorola announced its Dinara smartphone— officially known as the “xT928” – for China Telecom last November, but a supposed press leak of the AT&T variation just surfaced stateside.

The Verge received a media shot of the rumored device today (above). As the report noted, the assumed Atrix 2 successor boasts a 720p display, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and 4G LTE. The notable feature, however, is not really a feature at all: the Dinara lacks physical home buttons on the front display. Much is unknown about the smartphone this point; even its name is not set in stone. However, the “July 26” stamp within the date widget might finally give a hint as to when this device will launch.

Google closed its $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition last Month when China gave the merger an overdue go-ahead. Motorola promptly filed an 8-K form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the deal’s transaction finalized shortly after. It appears the Dinara’s software and user-interface is unaffected by the recent Google buyout and will likely sport a Motoblur flavor.

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 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBduf8o0AbI]

Google’s Vice President of Corporate Development David Lawee sat down with MG Siegler today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City to discuss the search engine’s history with acquisitions including yesterday’s buyout of Motorola Mobility. 

The entire interview is above (part 2 is below-soon), but the main point of discussion concerns the nugget that Google acquires 20 to 30 companies a year, with an additional 20 or more related to patents, but Lawee said two-thirds of all Google’s acquisitions have been successful. Lawee attributes the success rate to Google’s initiative to only recruit endeavors that will benefit from being a part of Google, rather than to continue existing on their own.

The VP further said each acquisition has its own metrics to determine whether it is successful, while he then mentioned DoubleClick and AdMob as two of Google’s most successful acquisitions. Slide, on the other hand, is one of Google’s failures.

“Sometimes executing on strategy leads other things to fail. […] 85 percent of that team ended up working for YouTube and they’ve done quite well there,” Lawee explained.

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