V-Vehicle is an automotive startup company based in San Diego, California.  The vehicle company has raised $62.25 million and plans to raise an additional $4 million.  The companies involved in the $62.25 million are Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.  V-Vehicle will be building cars in the northeastern region of Louisiana.

V-Vehicle raised a previous round from T. Boone Pickens and has former Mazda design chief Tom Matano on their staff.  V-Vehicle recently procured a facility that was owned by Guide Corporation.  And Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was at the announcement ceremony of the plant opening.  Jindal offered V-Vehicle $67 million as part ofa startup incentive package.  Local governments provided an additional $15 million.  V-Vehicle is aiming to raise about $50 million between equity and loans.

David Drummond, Google’s SVP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer is listed as one of the Board of Directors at V-Vehicle.  Former Oracle executive and founding CEO of V-Vehicle Frank Varasano had invested $100 million of his own money into the company.

Kleiner Perkins partners John Doerr and Ray Lane also have board seats in V-Vehicle.  James Davison, a trucking company leader is also listed as an investor.

In Louisiana, the company plans on developing a “green” car.  Tesla should beware, they’re not the only ones in the electric car game.

[via Xconomy/alarm:clock]

Google has recently announced the Google Ventures, the company’s new venture capital fund. Google aims to use this division to take advantage of their own resources to support innovation and encourage other technology companies.

Google plans to invest in early stage investments across industries such as Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care, and other industries that they haven’t thought about yet. In some circumstances, Google will depend on some of their own employees to recommend early stage companies.

Google has no problem spending tens of millions of dollars on a company depending on the stage of the company. Google Ventures is willing to co-invest with other outstanding venture capital firms. There will be a Google Ventures office based in Mountain View, California and in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

If you want your startup to be considered for funding, email is the best way to reach Google Ventures (ventures [[at]] Google.com). Bill Maris and Rich Miner are the first Managing Partners for the division.

In related news, Google recently invested in Pixazza, a service that connects advertising to images.

[via Google Blog]