Both Google and Sergey Brin have made an investment in personal genetics company 23andme in a series B funding round. This comes on top of a previous investment from both Google and Brin in the series A round in 2007. On the one hand, this is pretty sketchy. It is a serious conflict of interest, as Brin is married to 23andme co-founder Anne Wojcicki. On the other hand, you gotta hand it to Google and Brin for sinking their hands into yet another initiative that is trying to make the world a better place. Overall though, I wish they had found a less controversial way of doing so.
Brin appears to have sunk $10 million into this series B round, while Google has put in $2.6 million. As if the financial investments weren’t controversial enough, apparently Google and 23andme have entered into some sort of leasing agreement, though the details of this agreement are not available.
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