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Wow, finally, a real competition to Y-combinator?

No; they're planning to operate like a regular VC fund.

The fund will focus primarily on companies seeking seed funding and early stage funding, and Google Ventures will have the ability to make investments ranging from tens of thousands to "several tens of millions" of dollars, Maris said.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2009/03/reuters_us_g...

Sounds like competition to me. But it may also bring new opportunities for YC start-ups to be bought.

The small investments are not what makes YC YC.

Existing VCs also have the ability to make investments in the tens of thousands. But they rarely do because that's not what they're designed for.

how? this seems a lot more traditional VC:

We invest anywhere from seed stage to mezzanine and embrace the challenge of helping young companies grow from the garage to global relevance.

Does this mean mentorship? Demo Day? Who knows, but I think not...

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