Google Inc director John L. Doerr, whose firm was one of the search giant's biggest venture-capital backers, recently sold about US$30 million (€22.2 million) worth of the company's shares, according to a regulatory filing.

Doerr, a general partner of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, reported Friday's sale of 59,900 Google shares in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Tuesday.

Doerr sold the shares for an average price of US$500.90, though the selling price varied from US$498.40 to US$504.

Google shares, which are up about 11 per cent this year, rose US$11.77 or 2.3 per cent, to close at US$518.84 on Tuesday.

Stock slipped

The stock slipped $1.77 to US$517.07 in trading yesterday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Kleiner Perkins, of Menlo Park, California, invested US$14.2 million in Google in 1999 and parlayed that into a 21 million-share stake in Class B common stock when the Silicon Valley company went public. Venture capitalists typically invest in privately held start-up companies and then distribute shares to their investors once the company goes public.

Google's Class B shares, held by executives and other insiders, are convertible on a one-for-one basis into Class A stock, which is publicly traded.

According to other SEC filings Tuesday, Senior Vice-President Omid Kordestani on Friday sold 6,000 shares of Google common stock for about US$3 million (€2.22 million).

Google is based in Mountain View, California.

- AP