I am hanging out at the MobileBeat conference in Sunnyvale, Calif., today, watching Erick Schonfeld grill panelists on the “Bang or Bust” panel. One of the panelists is Matt Murphy, head of the $100 million iFund at Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers. “We have invested in five companies so far,” he told the room.
He named iControl, which brings home automation to the iPhone, as one of the fund’s investments, and said the names of three more would be revealed sometime between September and November. Given that the iFund was only announced back in March, I am surprised by the number of startups they’re investing in already. I have heard that VCs are currently sifting through business plans for iPhone-related startups. Tapulous is one of the hot iPhone startups out there and has already raised venture capital from well-known angels in Silicon Valley.
More information later after I wrap up my panel, which kicks off in a few minutes.
2 trackbacks so far
11:05 AM PT
[...] there was the Brainstorm Tech Conference down in Half Moon Bay, then a panel discussion at the MobileBeat conference, followed by a pit stop to the TechCrunch Party (see photo), a visit to the Microsoft Campus up in [...]
12:31 PM PT
[...] iFund Has Invested in 5 Companies So Far, GigaOm, Om Malik New iPhone 3G ads tout ‘twice as fast’, Macworld - iPhone Central, Dan Moren Apple’s App Store: The New Walled Garden, TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld Apple seeds iPhone 2.1 with directional GPS, push notification, AppleInsider, Aidan Malley AdMob Makes Mobile Ads Suck Less. Will Give Away One Million Dollars Worth of Ads To iPhone App Developers, TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld [...]
4 comments so far
2:43 PM PT
If you want to see the best iPhone app, check out Tunewiki!
2:53 PM PT
Tapolous seems to be building a gaming network as opposed to one application. The idea is brilliant and if they build a decent traffic for each application they can turn serve location based ads. I would not be surprised if they turn into an advertising network.
10:08 PM PT
@MattLilly … I agree. They have planned out their strategy clearly and are basically bringing social networking features to games giving them a real lift. I am sure they would try advertising, but in reality paid-apps is not such a bad strategy.
8:08 AM PT
Have they said how much money they’ve given out so far?