14 DAY TRIAL // iFund, the investment initiative funding market-changing ideas and products that build upon the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, was seeing its ante upped to $200 million, KPCB announced at a press event earlier this week. Launched in March 2008, around the same time the Apple App Store was introduced, the original fund was of $100M. KPCB’s iFund invests in companies building applications, services and components, and is agnostic to size and stage of investment.
According to the company itself, the iFund is managed by KPCB Partner Matt Murphy in collaboration with several other partners. Those include Chi-Hua Chien, John Doerr, Bing Gordon, Bill Joy, Randy Komisar, Aileen Lee, Ellen Pao and Ted Schlein. Apple will provide KPCB with market insight and support. They have invested in exactly 14 companies to date. Such prominent names as ng:moco, Shazam, Cooliris are mentioned in the report, which describes what 11 of these studios have contributed with. The list is provided as follows:
Booyah - Creating new forms of entertainment to the masses by bringing together elements of the real world and the digital world. Cooliris - a 3D interface for browsing vast amounts of rich media content on the iPhone and web. GOGII - Leading free texting (textPlus), communication, and group social interaction product for mobile. iControl - Stay connected in real-time to what matters most-family, property, home, and business-from anywhere in the world, anytime, day or night. InMobi - the largest independent mobile ad network, reaching mobile users in 37 countries. ng:moco - The first iPhone-only games publisher with 10+ leading titles and the Plus Network for 3rd party developers. Pelago (Whrrl) - Mobile social network and discovery app that allows you to find people, places, events, and trends through the eyes of your friends and other people on the Whrrl platform. Pinger - a publisher of great utility and entertainment apps for iPhone. Shazam - The world's leading mobile music discovery and socialization application - enabling consumers to experience and share music with others. shopkick - focused on the intersection of mobile and the physical retail world. Its goal is to dramatically improve the experience of consumers on that intersection. Zynga mobile – the world’s largest social gaming network, bringing social games to iPhone and iPod Touch.
A statement from John Doerr, a KPCB Partner, is also included. Doerr wishes everyone witnessing this phenomenon a warm "Welcome to the brave new post-PC era where a swoosh of fluidity replaces the traditional mouse-bound GUI. A new, truly revolutionary platform is rare, and a prize for entrepreneurs." "We expect all ventures to have an iPhone & iPad strategy. We will fund many more ventures for iPhone & iPad, and the iFund will accelerate their success," Doerr concludes.
Also noteworthy is that ng:moco CEO Neil Young stated at the press event that gaming on the iPad was likely to steal away gaming time from consoles and even PCs.