It's been a good week so far for Google.
The tech giant is currently bigger, by market cap, than General Electric. It has just established a new $100 million venture fund to invest in early-stage start-up firms. And its web browser is faster than its competitors, according to PC World.
General Electric, with annual revenues of more than $182 billion, is worth less on the stock market than Google, which boasts just $21.8 billion in annual sales. GE ended Monday's trading session with a market capitalization just a shade under $105 billion, compared with Google, which now stands at more than $108 billion, according to Gigaom.
On Tuesday, the tech company announced the formation of Google Ventures, which will be wholly owned by Google but operated as a separate entity. Rich Miner, a co-founder of the Android smart phone software that Google acquired in 2005, and Bill Maris will head up the investment fund.
Google's YouTube site has also struck a deal with Walt Disney Co. to broadcast the company's content from ESPN and ABC on the social networking platform.
In other good news for the company, Google's web browser, Chrome 2 Beta, loaded in just 1.3 seconds on nine test sites, half a second faster than runner-up Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. Safari and Firefox tied for last with an average loading time of 2.12 seconds for each of the test sites, PC World reported.
Google's stock was trading up $6.60 to $349.44 in afternoon trading.