CapitalG

Laela Sturdy is managing partner. She joined CapitalG shortly after its 2013 inception, having previously worked across marketing, strategy and sales at Google, and was elevated to the top job in March 2023, making her one of very few women holding sole leadership of an established multibillion-dollar venture firm. Her own investments include Stripe, Duolingo, Gusto, UiPath, Webflow and Whatnot.

David Lawee founded the fund and ran it for a decade before handing over to Sturdy and stepping down after seventeen years at Alphabet. He had been Google's first chief marketing officer and vice president of corporate development, meaning the growth fund was built by someone who spent years acquiring companies for Google rather than by a career financial investor. The team is structured to give portfolio company management teams access to Alphabet operating expertise in sales, engineering recruiting and infrastructure.

CapitalG launched in 2013 as Google Capital, Alphabet's dedicated late-stage vehicle, and was renamed CapitalG in 2016 when Alphabet separated it from GV, the earlier-stage arm. It manages roughly $7 billion. Alphabet is the sole source of capital, so the firm runs no outside fundraises and reports no vintage-year fund closes the way an independent growth manager would; the pool is replenished from the parent.

Check sizes run from $15 million to $200 million into minority positions in companies that already carry substantial revenue and typically sit two to four rounds from a liquidity event. CapitalG has held positions in Stripe, Airbnb, Uber, Snap, Robinhood, Duolingo, UiPath, GitLab, Gusto, Webflow, Whatnot and Zscaler. Several of those, including UiPath, GitLab, Duolingo and Zscaler, went public while the firm was on the register, which is the closest thing the vehicle has to a realized-return record given it publishes no fund-level performance.