Google joined sFund, which is a $250 million fund started by Kleiner-Perkins last year. It is used to invest in small social networking startups. The fund’s other members include Amazon, Facebook, and Zynga. When the fund was announced last year, Google was not a major player in social networking. Its Wave was not embraced by the users and its Buzz was on the same path. Since then, it launched Google+, which has more than 40 million users.
Now Google joined other social networking companies to invest on hot startups in the industry. It also acquired Katango, which is sFund’s first exit. Katango used Facebook information to create circles of friends based on backgrounds and related interests. This would be perfect for the Circles feature of Google+. Although it is easy to organize friends into Circles, it doesn’t have a way to suggest new members.
Katango was the second acquisition that Google announced yesterday. It also purchased Apture, which is a web technology company. It looks like the search giant is still on an acquisition spree. This year alone, it has bought more than 50 companies, spending as much as $1.4 billion. This doesn’t include the proposed purchases of Motorola and AdMeld.
