The iFund is a

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

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 technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

's iPhone, iPod Touch and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

platform. It is being offered and managed by

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

company

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 ...

(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 Pre ...

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 on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,82 ...

. 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 at ...

, Randy Komisar,

Ellen Pao Ellen Kangourou Pao (born 1970) is an American investor and former CEO of social media company Reddit. Pao first became known in 2012 for filing a failed gender discrimination suit against her employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, a ...

, 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 truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

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

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

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

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 in 14 November 2010. The service allows users to share up to a total of 50 contacts with their close friends and family. Based in San F ...

shopkick Shopkick is an American company based in Denver that created a shopping app for smartphones and tablets offering users’ rewards for shopping activities on both online and offline platforms such as walking into stores, scanning items, making in ...

(acquired) * Ngmoco (acquired) * SessionM (acquired) * Drawbridge (acquired) * Shazam (acquired) * Booyah * Crittercism

References

External links

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