Care.com disclosed Wednesday afternoon that Google Capital, Alphabet's growth equity fund, has purchased a $46.35 million stake in the Waltham company.
"This is a huge opportunity to take advantage of Google Capital’s strategic expertise."
This not only makes Google Capital the largest shareholder in Care.com, but it's also the Alphabet fund's first public company investment to date, as pointed out in The New York Times. Google Capital has previously made investments in growth-stage private startups like Credit Karma and Survey Monkey.
As part of the investment, Google Capital General Partner Laela Sturdy is joining Care.com's board.
"This is a huge opportunity to take advantage of Google Capital’s strategic expertise and it gives us access to hundreds of experts at Google and Alphabet, with leadership and innovation," Care.com co-founder and CEO Sheila Lirio Marcelo told the Boston Business Journal.
The BBJ noted that some of Google Capital's investment is being used to repurchase the 3.7 million shares of common stock held by early Care.com investor Matrix Partners, which comes out to a total of $30.5 million.
In after hours trading, Care.com's stock price shot up 18 percent to $10 a share, as of 6 p.m.
For its past two quarters, Care.com reported profitability and beat Wall Street expectations, after experiencing something of a slump over recent years, as reported by the BBJ.
