Kevin Rose’s Milk Co-Founder Daniel Burka Joins Google Ventures As Design Partner

Daniel Burka, who co-founded mobile incubator Milk, has joined Google Ventures as a design partner.

In a tweet earlier this morning, Burka noted that this is another chance for him to work with his Milk co-founder Kevin Rose. Before Milk, Burka was a designer at Digg and a co-founder at Pownce (Rose co-founded both).

Google acquired the Milk team in March, and a few months later Rose joined Google Ventures as an investment partner. According to Burka’s new bio on the Google Ventures site, after the acquisition he led the mobile experience team for Google+.

Design partners are part of the Google Ventures design studio, which works with portfolio companies on product design and user research. A Google Ventures spokesperson told me that the firm has held more than 50 design sessions with its companies this year. The firm also announced a designer in residence program in October, where it enlists designers to work with its startups for a few months.

I’m scheduled to talk to Rose in a few minutes, so I’ll be updating this post with his comments.

Update: When I asked about what brought Burka over to Google Ventures, Rose said it made sense, especially given the pair’s history together, and Burka’s experience co-founding Silverorange, a web agency that “does nothing but work with various different startups.”

Rose added that Google Ventures has realized — “just as everyone has realized” — that design plays a big role in a startup’s success. At the same time, different startups have different design needs, and so the firm’s design partners have different strengths. Burka is “a really amazing product designer” and visual designer, he said, while other partners are good at research and running focus groups.

I also asked if anyone has taken over Burka’s role at Google+. Rose said he doesn’t know, but added, “Obviously, it wasn’t just Daniel — they’ve got a whole team of designers over there.”