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Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2011 was driven by the need to obtain Motorola’s patent portfolio so that they could defend Android from legal challenges.
The deal enabled Android to continue its growth and achieve OS dominance in the mobile market.
In 2006, Google decided to go ahead with a $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube.
Blasted by some as excessive at the time.
The acquisition proved to be visionary.
Google’s infrastructure and advertising capabilities transformed YouTube from a struggling startup into the number one streaming platform.
Eventually, streaming content to billions of users.
Google’s $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007 transformed Google’s business and advertising on the web.
It was genius in that it combined Google’s search advertising dominance with DoubleClick’s display advertising technology.
The web has now become ubiquitous with these ads.
The merger created an end-to-end advertising ecosystem that leveraged combined data sets for enhanced targeting capabilities.
It made Google number one in digital advertising sales, giving them their primary source of revenue today.
As close to a money printer that exists.
Google bought Nest Labs for $3.2 billion in 2014.
The company’s executives foresaw the Internet of Things and wanted to get into the smart home market.
It provided Google with IoT technology that they didn’t have to R&D and brand recognition through Nest’s innovative thermostats and smoke detectors.
In 2019, Google acquired the Santa Cruz startup Looker for $2.6 billion—giving the tech giant premium business analytics software that also equipped its new Google Cloud with a BI platform that appealed directly to enterprise clients like Yahoo and Etsy.
It also helped them launch their own analytics offerings through its flagship product: Looker Studio.
Acquiring Waze for $966 million in 2013, Google was able to build off their popular crowdsourced mapping technology, helping them to incorporate user-generated traffic updates and navigation data into Google Maps.
It was an excellent investment for Google Maps that leveraged Waze’s vast network of contributors to create a best-in-class mobile app for commuters.
In 2021, Google wanted a way into the fitness wearables market.
So they went ahead with a $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, gaining access to over 120 million users, plus valuable health data.
The purchase positioned Google well for the health and fitness market.
They were able to leverage their own technical expertise alongside Fitbit’s established hardware, proprietary health metrics, and FDA-cleared features.
Google’s $625 million acquisition of Apigee in 2016 helped to upgrade its cloud computing credibility by providing enterprise-grade API management capabilities for major clients like AT&T and Walgreens.
Google was now able to provide robust API tooling and analytics that made it a compelling platform for businesses’ digital initiatives.
For $5.4 billion, Google’s Cloud division acquired Mandiant in 2022—transforming its security capabilities from a consumer-web company into a formidable cloud security provider overnight.
Making Cloud a good choice for its competitors like AWS and Azure.
The deal armed Google Cloud with Mandiant’s cyber defense team, threat intelligence services, and two decades of experience investigating nation-state attacks.
Google’s strategic $625 million acquisition of DeepMind in 2014 provided crucial AI talent and neural network capabilities.
This might be Google’s most important acquisition ever, as it set them up to be in the cutting edge of AI technology likelarge language models.
It helped Google to pursue an “AI first” strategy bringing on new upgrades to their search results like AI overviews and their Gemini AI platform.
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