Google Plans To Fund Gadget Developers
Eager to grow the Google Gadget ecosystem, Google has announced a Google Gadget Ventures program aimed at funding Gadget developers. Google says it will issue grants of $5000 to developers who have build Gadgets with at least 250,000 pageviews per week.
On the larger end, Google is offering $100,000 seed investment to Gadget developers with good proposals to build a business around their Gadgets (and have already received the grant). Google will take equity in developers who are given seed investments. You do not need to be a U.S. citizen to apply, but you must be able to start a U.S. company.
Google intends to make 20 to 40 grants per year, and 2 to 5 seed investments per year.
This is a smart move by Google, helping along the development of the Gadget ecosystem, since Facebook’s applications have stolen a lot of the thunder in this segment. Google may not have the explosive growth of Facebook applications, but at least it can claim that it’s developers make actual money.
