Google’s venture capital wing is wildly successful and one that is worth learning from. One branch of it, Google Ventures - or GV for short, was founded in 2009 with the goal of being an investment fund separate from Google. Today, it manages over $10 billion in assets.
They’ve been early investors into dozens of companies now worth multiples of their original valuations. And Google’s VC wing doesn’t just stop at successful investors in other companies.
Google itself has pulled off some of the most impressive acquisitions ever with companies like YouTube (acquired for $1.65 billion) and Android (acquired for $50 million).
They’ve also built their own moonshot projects, the most famous of which are Waymo (now valued at over $100 billion) and Google DeepMind (likely valued at hundreds of billions of dollars).
At the same time, they’ve also shown incredible discipline deciding to “kill” over 300 projects and apps that the company decided weren’t worth continuing.1
In this piece, I’m going to be going over seven of Google’s most successful investments over the past decade and understanding which public companies still present valuable opportunities that are actionable today.
Three of Google’s Largest Private Investments:
Anthropic:
First investment at: $4.1 billion valuation in 2023.
Anthropic today: $965 billion valuation.
Stake in Anthropic ≈14% worth roughly $135 billion
My Thoughts:
Anthropic’s valuation is 235x higher since Google’s initial investment and will continue rising.2 Anthropic is a fantastic company and one I see emerging as a likely winner in AI going forward. It’s a company I have already covered in depth in a full Anthropic breakdown and one that I will continue writing about before its IPO in the (likely) coming months.
It’s a company that I am bullish on in general and depending on the valuation will likely consider buying at some point post IPO. When I originally wrote my full analysis on the piece I rated Anthropic a “strong buy” at a $380 billion valuation and its subsequent funding round which valued the company at $965 billion.
By the time the company goes public, I expect the valuation to be closer to $1.5-1.8 trillion, likely a 5x return in under a year for all those who invested at a $380 billion valuation. The exact valuation will be dependent on the S-1 filing and the general macro situation but I wouldn’t be surprised if Anthropic crosses the $2 trillion mark within a few weeks of its IPO.
In any case, Google is set to become one of the biggest winners no matter the price Anthropic goes public at. With a major stake in Anthropic and a leading model in Gemini, Google has the luxury of integrating Gemini into Google search and having a major stake in Anthropic on the side.
Stripe:
First investment at: $9.2 billion in 2016.
Stripe today: $159 billion valuation.
Stake in Stripe: Undisclosed, CapitalG led the Series D funding round and GV participated in a further funding round in 2020. Stripe was most recently valued at $159 billion - over 17.7x more than the valuation at which Google initially invested.
My Thoughts:
Catching a company like Stripe at a sub $10 billion valuation is extremely impressive. What’s even more impressive is that not only did Google lead the funding round in 2016 but they re-invested again in 2020 showing conviction and an ability to escape anchoring bias.
Stripe is an incredible company being led by two brothers from Ireland. They recently made a major $7 billion acquisition of OpenRouter and they are potentially performing another even larger one in PayPal. Clearly, the financial infrastructure giant isn’t content to sit back and instead wants to grow into the clear #1 choice for all online payments.
When I covered Stripe in depth I came out extremely bullish on the company. In simple terms, Stripe is outpacing its competitors both in revenue growth and in total payment volume. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would argue the graph below does more than a thousand.
Google also has a strategic reason for investing in Stripe. Google is one of the companies that most benefit from online payments being as smooth as possible as Google provides the ecosystem that makes it possible. A company that produces more sales will have more money to reinvest into advertisements that are likely taking place on Google. Finally, Stripe uses Google Cloud as its cloud provider, another benefit for Google.
While I believe that Stripe is already valued at a relatively premium price, I think that valuation is justified based on its revenue growth and emerging dominance. This is a company that can very likely join the ranks of Visa and Mastercard as one of the payment giants for decades to come.
Ripple:
First investment at: Led an angel round at a valuation of tens of millions of dollars in 2013.
Ripple today: $50 billion
Stake in Ripple: Undisclosed, GV led Ripple’s first ever angel funding round and subsequently invested in the Series A and B funding rounds. Ripple was most recently valued at $50 billion, likely more than 1,000x its initial valuation at which Google invested.
My Thoughts:
This is a company that I haven’t covered yet but is one that has definitely popped up on my radar multiple times. Most recently, Ripple’s $50 billion valuation in March 2026 represented a 25% increase since its most recent valuation in November of 2025. A company worth tens of billions growing 25% in a period of roughly four months is automatically a company I look closely at.
Ripple is a company that is building a financial infrastructure that makes it cheaper and faster to move money using blockchain and digital assets. Today, it isn’t just being used by crypto users; Ripple also service banks (like JPMorgan and Banco Santander) and large businesses (like Mastercard and American Express) that move money internationally.
According to estimates, Ripple generated $1.2 billion in 2025, a 33% increase from their 2024 revenue number.3 This means that they are valued at roughly 42 EV/Revenue which is extremely high, even for a company growing quickly like they are. Stripe in comparison is valued at a 23 EV/Revenue multiple and is growing at roughly a similar rate.
While Ripple seems like a fascinating business, this seems like one whose valuation has raced ahead of the fundamentals. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment long term, but it does mean that I would be wary investing money into this company especially with the added strings that come along with investing into the private market.
In the next section, four public companies that Google has invested in including two I believe have significant room to run. One is a company that I currently hold in my portfolio and is up over 30% since I bought. Plus, three lessons for your portfolio that we can learn from Google’s approach that apply directly to how you invest.