Google Sister Verily Raises $700M As It Seeks To Scale Up

Verily, Alphabet Inc’s GOOG GOOGL life sciences research unit, on Thursday disclosed raising $700 million from existing investors in its latest funding round.

What Happened: In addition to parent Alphabet — Silver Lake, Temasek, Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan participated in the funding round. The company intends to deploy these funds to expand its business segments like the clinical-research ecosystem Baseline, the Verily Health Problems division, and other life sciences programs in surgery, pathology, and immunology.

“2021 will be a year of significant and focused growth for Verily’s operations as we continue to drive innovation in our core programs, launching more studies and study tools on Baseline to support decentralized research, and expanding our Health Platforms product offerings and services for employers, providers and patients," Verily CEO Andrew Conrad said in a statement. 

In 2017, Verily received $800 million from the Singapore government-owned Temasek Holdings Limited and $1 billion from Silver Lake in early 2019, reports CNBC.

Why Does It Matter: Verily had a role to play during the COVID-19 outbreak and the company efforts attracted commercial interests and growth opportunities, it said. Reportedly, Verily's baseline program handled the screening and testing across 351 locations covering close to 2 million people.

On the other hand, the Alphabet unit's Health Platforms unit engaged enterprises with its Healthy At Work program. Onduo — Verily’s virtual healthcare clinic, expanded into hypertension and general wellness support this year.

In August, Verily declared plans to chart its pathway in the insurance business through a new unit in partnership with Swiss Re Corporate.

Price Action: On Thursday, Google Class C shares closed 0.86% lower at $1,747.90 and Class A shares were down 0.95% at $1,740.51.