Sturdy joined Google in 2007 in a marketing role and was recruited by Lawee to join CapitalG when it was launched in 2013. As the leader, she is quick to note that 60% of her team comes from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds.
CapitalG’s model aims to find ways that Google and Alphabet can help portfolio companies, providing access to over 3500 different senior advisors inside of Alphabet to help partner with the portfolio companies in areas such as pricing analysis, scaling infrastructure, and marketing.
Sturdy also emphasizes that everything is opt-in from the portfolio companies’ standpoint and that they operate separately from Alphabet, serving as intermediaries for win-win partnerships where they exist.
The investment committee at CapitalG, composed of Sturdy and three other general partners, makes decisions as a committee and typically invests between $50 million and $200 million in each company. The firm is focused on long-term partnerships and aims to be the best partners to founders to refer them to the next best companies down the line.
CapitalG invests out of discrete funds totaling $7 billion in assets under management dating back to 2013, and the firm has a long-term orientation, focusing on delivering returns and using the expertise and experience of Google and Alphabet to be world-class partners to generational tech companies.
Sturdy also discusses CapitalG’s AI strategy and investments, noting that they are excited about AI and are focusing on areas of real technical differentiation. One example is Magic, a company focused on building an AI software engineer, that the firm has backed.
She also comments on the trend of AI enhancing the customer experience and rethinking marketing stacks, customer support, and services across their portfolio companies.
