Welcome!

Login Register
< > MySpace's new iPhone app updates ... Report claims Spotify now has ...

KPCB launches $250m sFund for social apps and services

Stuart Dredge
KPCB launches $250m sFund for social apps and services

May end up co-investing with the iPhone-focused iFund.

US venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has announced a $250 million 'sFund', which will invest in new social applications and services.

It's a counterpart to KPCB's existing iFund, which focuses on iOS-related startups, and has backed the likes of Shazam, ngmoco, Flipboard and Booyah.

sFund will focus more on services tapping into the social web, such as Facebook application developers.

"We’re at the beginning of a new era for social Internet innovators who are re-imagining and re-inventing a Web of people and places, looking beyond documents and websites," says partner John Doerr.

"There’s never been a better time than now to start a new social venture."

Article continues below

Advertisement

Amazon, Facebook and Zynga are all backing the sFund, which will be led by another KPCB partner Bing Gordon, fresh from his success in helping ngmoco to its lucrative exit at the hands of DeNA.

What happens when startups are working on services that work across the social web and mobile, though? Booyah is already one example.

Gordon tells VentureBeat that the sFund and iFund may make investments together in such companies.

"People are going to have their friends in their pockets, and work associates intermingled with their friends," he says. "Five years from now, things are going to be wild and woolly."

Tags: kpcb