The 12 Most Expensive Acquisitions Made by Google

Google has been around for quite a while and in this time it has gone from a simple search engine to a company so big it covers numerous playing fields, including robotics, medical research, security services, mapping and so on. 12 of the most expensive acquisitions made by Google have helped create this behemoth.

In order to achieve this level of diversity, Google has had to buy a lot of companies. Although it has not revealed the acquisition price for a lot of the companies it bought, its SEC filings reveal the investments it made and the score is getting close to $30 billion so far, while the number of acquired companies is drawing close to 200. 2014 was an especially acquisitive year for Google as 35 companies joined the tech giant.

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This year, Google has slowed down its engines somewhat as it orchestrated its reorganization — the company announced the formation of Alphabet Inc., a giant conglomerate that swallowed up Google itself as well as all the other areas. This move raised some eyebrows and people wondered what business Google had buying this name or that name.

Currently, Alphabet Inc. includes several companies: Fiber (high speed Internet), Calico (biotech research and development), Nest (home automation), Life Sciences (medical and health issues), Ventures (venture capital unit), Capital (investment unit), Google X (outlandish longshots – driverless cars, Project Loon, Google Glass) and Google. For its part, Google continues to include Ads, Analytics, Search, YouTube, Android, Maps and Apps.

Until the creation of Alphabet Inc., people always wondered why Google was buying various companies, including Boston Dynamics, creator of really cool robots, or Nest, basically a thermostat app. Now, founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin have made it clear that they’re interested in a lot more areas, even if 90% of the Alphabet Inc. revenues still come from the Google arm.

If you love any of these companies, you can check out the 25 biggest communities on Google Plus and see if there are enough fans to make the list.

We’ve gone over the available data provided by Google regarding some of its acquisitions and we’re going to rank them by their price tag.