Creative Commons has received $500,000 from 23andme co-founder Anne Wojcicki and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
“We are delighted that the couple recognizes the importance of Creative Commons and has decided to invest in our work to support sharing, collaboration, and the spread of knowledge and creativity,” stated Melissa Reeder of Creative Commons on the company blog. “This gift – made in addition to the financial support that Google offers CC annually – will be used to support Creative Commons generally, with a focus on developing our Science Commons project, which Wojcicki and Brin are particularly excited about.”
Lawrence Lessig, the Creative Commons founder stepped down from the company last year to focus on Change Congress. Around the time that Lawrence left, Creative Commons received a $4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Interestingly ValleyWag points out that Creative Commons is chaired by Esther Wojcicki, the mother of Anne. Google also employs Esther as an educational consultant. Sounds like Brin likes to keep business and family together.
Google has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have invested $2.6 million in the genetic testing startup 23andMe as part of a Series B round of funding. 23andMe was co-founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki.
It is uncertain whether the deal was made directly through Google or through their Ventures subsidiary. The $2.6 million round of fund was part of a $12.6 million Series B round. The other $10 million came from Sergey Brin’s personal wealth of $12 billion. This brings 23andMe’s total funding to about $21.6 million. Other investors include Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
Google owns a minority interest in 23andMe and also plans to lease space to the genetics company. Google wrote in the filing that they took measures to ensure the decision before investing to make the agreement was free of conflict of interest. Sergey Brin was not part of the investment discussions according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
23andMe is a personal genomics and biotech company based in Mountain View, California. 23andMe offers tests for genome-wide, single nucleotide polymorphisms for the cost of $299. 23andMe received $3.9 million investment from Google. Google co-founder is married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki.
Today it was announced that 23andMe raised an additional $11 million of a $24.26 million venture round according to a regulatory filing. 23andMe’s first round of funding was $9 million by Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
In this new round, there wasn’t any investor information mentioned. No info on whether Google Ventures or Google.org was part of the investment. 23andMe’s website currently only lists New Enterprise Associates and Google as their investors. If we find out who the investors are, we’ll update with a new post.
