Fund money for Google Gadget Ventures

This one doesn’t really make sense to me — Google is offering Google Gadget developers money and more funding for full-fledged business ideas.

The program will provide two kinds of funding. First, we’ll invite promising gadget developers (individuals or businesses) to apply for $5,000 grants to fund further development. These are not loans or equity investments; they’re simply grants for gadgets that already have a thriving user base and we think have potential for even more improvement. To be considered for a grant, your gadget needs to have more than 250,000 pageviews per week, and you need to provide a one-page proposal on how you’d like to improve your gadget. This is a no-strings-attached grant; we won’t ask for repayment of any kind. We simply ask that you work on your project in good faith.

Secondly, the program will make $100,000 seed investments in companies that either start as a Google Gadget or have a large Google Gadget component. In order to be eligible for a seed investment, you must have received a $5,000 grant, and you must propose a plan for making your gadget financially sustainable.

More about the Google Gadget Ventures here. What’s with Google Gadgets that they’d be investing loads of money in it? I guess if you’re a $500-a-share company and got bucketfuls of money, you can spend that much.