The iFund is a

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

200 million capital fund. Developers may enter into equity deals for the creation of applications, services, and components for

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

and

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

platform. It is being offered and managed by

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

company Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB). The iFund was announced by KPCB partner

John Doerr L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the ...

at the same time as the iPhone OS SDK, at Apple's iPhone Roadmap event on March 6, 2008 in

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose, California, San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ...

. The iFund is managed by KPCB partner Matt Murphy in collaboration with partners Chi-Hua Chien, John Doerr,

Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO ...

, Randy Komisar, Ellen Pao, and Ted Schlein. Apple provides KPCB with market insight and support. On March 31, 2010 KPCB announced the fund has been doubled. On September 15, 2008, KPCB launched a

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

to share perspectives on the iFund. In December 2008 the confidential iFund application data was accidentally published on the web by

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

’ former hosting provider, Meteora Technologies Group, in a database dump file. The file was indexed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and coincidentally discovered by a fruux staffer. The file contained Applications from 588 companies including detailed information from each of these companies, like founder bios, financial ratios and business models.

Portfolio companies

Path (social network) Path was a social networking-enabled photo sharing and messaging service for mobile devices that was launched on 14 November 2010. The service allowed users to share up to a total of 50 contacts with their close friends and family. Based in San F ...

* shopkick (acquired) * Ngmoco (acquired) * SessionM (acquired) *

Drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...

(acquired) * Shazam (acquired) * Booyah * Crittercism

References

External links

KPCB iFund Initiative
Apple Inc. partnerships IPhone IOS Investment funds Telecommunications-related introductions in 2008 {{Apple-stub