Google recently announced its plan to acquire Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. The beneficiaries of this massive jump in valuation—from an $825 million pre-money valuation in its January 2013 Series C round—will be KPCB, Shasta Ventures, Venrock, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Generation Investment Management, Intertrust Group Holdings, and most interestingly, Google Ventures. It would seem almost natural for Google Ventures to exit its portfolio companies to its parent company. However, in its five years of prolific investing, Nest Labs is only the firm’s second portfolio company to be sold to Google. Google Ventures has sold an equal number of portfolio companies to Google as it has to Yahoo and Cisco Systems. Is this the norm for corporate venture capital firms or is Google Ventures an outlier?
