Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Anne Wojcicki

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Donates $500,000 To Wikipedia

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:27:12 +0000

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin has made a $500,000 grant to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is attempting to raise $28.3 million for its annual budget. The donation was made as part of a foundation created by Sergey and his wife Anne Wojcicki.

Every year Wikipedia hosts an annual fundraiser instead of using advertisements. The fundraiser will be running through January. Last year’s campaign raised $16 million towards the $20 million budget.

“If everyone reading this donated $5, our fundraiser would be over today,” stated Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. “Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff. Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views. Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn’t belong here. Not in Wikipedia.”

[Ars Technica]

23andMe Raises $22 Million In Third Round Of Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:38:08 +0000

23andMe is a personal genetics company that was co-founded by the wife of Google co-founder Segrey Brin, Anne Wojcicki. The company has raised a $22 million third round of funding from Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, New Enterprise Associates, and Google Ventures. 23andMe was founded in 2006 with the goal of helping people understand their genetics through DNA analysis technologies.

“We believe this round of financing will help us achieve our goal of dramatically accelerating the pace of research and could ultimately make health care research and health care delivery more efficient,” stated Wojcicki.

[TechCrunch]

23andMe Raises $28 Million In Series B

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:57:33 +0000

Genetic testing company 23andMe has raised $28 million in Series B according to a company regulatory filing. The company raised $11 million of the Series B round of funding back in May and raised the rest of it recently. The company initially planned to raised $24.26 million. 23andMe was founded by Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey. Avey recently quit the company but remained on the board of directors. 23andMe’s Series A round of funding was provided by Google, Genentech, Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV), and New Enterprise Associates. MDV sold their stake back to 23andMe and invested in another rival company called Navigenics.

Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki Invest $500,000 In Creative Commons

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:01:27 +0000

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 Invests $2.6 Million In 23andMe

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:24:37 +0000

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.

[via BusinessInsider/NYT]

23andMe Raises Over $11 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:27:22 +0000

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.