Technology

Posted on January 4, 2019 by staff

Verily raises $1bn as Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat joins board

Technology

The life science tech unit at Google’s parent company Alphabet has raised $1 billion in a new funding round.

Private equity firm Silver Lake, which has previously backed Alibaba Group, Dell, Tesla and gene company Ancestry, led the investment into Verily, which was previously part of Google’s research and development unit.

It follows $800 million funding from Singapore state investor Temasek in 2017.

Alphabet’s chief financial officer Ruth Porat and Silver Lake managing director Egon Durban are set to join the board at Verily, which said the new funding would support potential future acquisitions and partnerships.

Verily’s projects with third parties include glucose monitors for diabetics, smart cutlery for Parkinson’s’ sufferers, sterile mosquitoes to counteract the spread of disease, bioelectronic medicines, surgical robots and eye disease detection.

However it recently halted its glucose monitoring contact lens project because it was proving difficult to gather accurate results due to human tears.