Google Ventures in 2012: $300M, 150 companies, and one Nobel Prize

Google Ventures is not-so-humbly bragging today about its activities in 2012, which included a huge number of additions to the portfolio, a whole lot of money trafficked through its portfolio apps, and even some ground-breaking research in medicine and science.

In this year-end retrospective, the firm-within-a-company shares with us a video clip and infographic detailing some of the highlights from 2012.

Of note is the firm’s breakdown of investments by sector. About a third of Google Ventures’ investments are in consumer web companies; another third makes up mobile startup investments. E-commerce grabs a 16 percent share of the pie, leaving 10 percent for big data investments, 6 percent for life sciences, and 5 percent for energy-startup deals.

The GV team also got some high-profile new additions this year, most notably Digg founder Kevin Rose (read our in-depth interview) and Rose’s longtime business collaborator Daniel Burka.

We spent a good deal of time with the GV partners and portfolio companies this year; to get our take on what makes the firm so special, check out our long-form piece on how the firm operates within but still separate from Google Inc.

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