Google spends over $250 million on start-ups in quarter

From CNET News.com: Google spent more than $250 million on a total of 10 acquisitions during the first quarter of the year, putting it on quite a pace for 2010.

Most of the individual companies that Google buys are pretty small, and sell for prices low enough that Google doesn't have to disclose how much it paid because the price isn't material to its business. However, Google revealed the total amount spent in the first quarter as $268 million in its quarterly filing with the SEC Wednesday.

Of those 10 companies purchased by Google over the last three months, specific details were only provided for the On2 Technologies deal. Google paid a total of $123 million for On2, according to the filing. It was forced to sweeten the original deal after On2 shareholders balked, even though it only valued On2's array of patents behind the VP8 video codec at $27 million.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said several times in recent months--most recently on Monday--that Google will buy more companies in 2010 than it did in 2009, at a pace of roughly one a month. Some of the companies Google added in the first quarter include social search engine Aardvark, online document service DocVerse, and mobile e-mail start-up ReMail. And Google has already made several deals in the second quarter, such as Plink and secretive chip start-up Agnilux.

The big prize is still in limbo, however, with the Federal Trade Commission expected to rule shortly on whether it will challenge Google's proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob. Google stuck to its guns in the quarterly filing, saying that it expects to close the deal in the second quarter, but multiple reports indicate the FTC is poised to take action.

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