Mon. April 4, 2016
The venture capital arm of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said Friday that it would avoid investing in North Carolina over a recently approved anti-gay bill.
House Bill 2, which was approved last month during a one-day special session, blocks local municipalities from enacting measures that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and prohibits students in public institutions from using the bathroom that does not conform to their gender at birth.
GV, formerly Google Ventures, said that it had decided not to provide financing to startups in North Carolina until the law is repealed.
Bill Maris, the firm's chief executive, said in an email that he's "not comfortable deploying dollars into startups there until the voters there fix this."
"I am hopeful this will be repealed quickly," he added.
(Related: Tim Cook, Marc Benioff, Sundar Pichai call on North Carolina to repeal anti-gay bill.)
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