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Perhaps Google is leveraging their name and their value as a resource? Google Ventures investing in you could also be seen as a strong positive signal too. And not that I know what those resources offered might be, and not saying it is fair to earlier investors, though I would give someone with say media reach more value than say a local silent investor who has nothing other than money to offer.

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Google Ventures is not the "Google" of venture funding. And there are about 5-7 firms that would have this type of brand-value that don't even consider these kind of tactics.

It's still called Google Ventures to leverage Google's name. Regarding tactics, I guess it's a matter of knowing your poker hand and trying to put your best foot forward. I can see a point to perhaps doing such a lessened risk with incubator-founded startups, in that the model isn't yet proven of how the average incubator startup can compare to an external team that would have very different dynamics of being processed. It's in an incubator's best interest to make things look good - so the startup gets funding and the incubator's equity becomes more available - though it doesn't mean it was people on the team itself that could have achieved the same, nor that those same resources would continue to be available to the team (or at the same amount) once away from the incubator.

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