Kleiner Perkins launches social-app fund
Facebook, Amazon, and Silicon Valley bank Allen & Co. are among the high-profile investors in sFund, a $250 million social-application fund launched by venture capital stalwarts Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers today. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr spearheaded the announcement, which was held at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
"We're in a third wave of incredible and disruptive innovation," Doerr said of the current climate of digital development, which he sees following in the footsteps of the initial rise of PCs and then the Internet and browser revolution in the 1990s. These new entrepreneurs are "reimagining and really reinventing the social Web," he said.
Bing Gordon, a former Electronic Arts executive and current partner at Kleiner Perkins, will run the new fund. Companies and firms who have committed to back the fund and serve as strategic partners include Facebook, Amazon, social-games powerhouse Zynga, Silicon Valley bank Allen & Co, Comcast, and Liberty Media. Gordon said that more partners have been in discussions and will be added in accordance with finance laws.
For more on this story, see VC firm Kleiner Perkins launches social-app fund on CNET News.