Former Google Executives Raise $11.3 Million for AI Startup Fund

As companies move past generic chatbot trials, a new investment fund is betting on AI tools that prove their worth inside real business workflows.

Former Google employees have raised $11.3 million for BAG Ventures, a fund that will invest in AI startups. The founders expect businesses to move beyond experimenting with enterprise AI toward solutions with proven practical value that companies are willing to pay for.

The fund was founded by Bonita Stewart, a former Google vice president, and Jackson George Jr., a former partner at CapitalG. Before BAG Ventures officially launched, the team spent about two years investing in early-stage companies and backed ten startups. They include software developer SXD, travel-planning AI agent BizTrip, and agentic reasoning platform Nomadic.

What kinds of startups interest BAG Ventures

The fund is considering projects in AI infrastructure, computing capacity, edge AI, security, data management, and industry-specific software. Initial investments range from $100,000 to $500,000. The remaining funds are expected to be allocated over the next two years.

Bonita Stewart spent 17 years at Google, nearly ten of them as a vice president. She also served on the board of Gradient Ventures, Google’s early-stage AI fund. Jackson George Jr. worked at GE Healthcare and Google before becoming a partner at CapitalG, Alphabet’s investment fund. Together, they also co-led BAG Collective, an angel network with more than 450 members.

The fund is focused on AI’s practical value

The founders see access to company executives and potential customers as one of the fund’s advantages. BAG Ventures’ limited partners include Google and representatives from Nvidia, Amazon, and Snowflake. The fund has more than 150 such partners in total, who help startups connect with buyers and get practical advice on entering the market.

We don’t just provide founders with capital – we also introduce them directly to potential customers and help them develop their go-to-market strategy.

According to Jackson George Jr., companies are gradually moving away from paying for access to general-purpose chatbots and focusing instead on cost-effectiveness and tangible results. Examples of products with practical value include tools embedded in workflows to automate code reviews or analyze legal documents. In the future, businesses may pay for the results a system delivers rather than for the number of user licenses.

BAG Ventures is looking for teams that have already worked together, built a minimum viable product, secured at least one partner, and developed a clear monetization plan. The fund is particularly interested in tools embedded in enterprise workflows that use unique data. Jackson George Jr. believes startups will struggle to stay competitive if their product merely adds a simple interface to an existing AI model.

Another promising area is solutions for regulated industries, where data protection, acceptable-use policies, and continuous automated security testing are essential. The fund also expects demand for identity and access management systems for AI agents, as well as new zero-trust architectures for these systems. BAG Ventures’ overall focus is on startups that can embed AI in enterprise operations and demonstrate measurable business benefits.

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