Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the legendary venture capital firm that made big money during the PC era and early days of the Internet, is looking to hire a partner who will focus on Digital Media investments, according to several Silicon Valley sources.
The Sandhill Road-based firm, which has invested in names such as Netscape, Compaq Computer, Sun Microsystems and AOL in the past is looking to bring on board a technically savvy partner who will help bolster the iFund, a fund devoted to the Apple iPhone ecosystem. KPCB doubled the size of the iFund in 2010. Currently, Matt Murphy leads much of KPCB’s mobile investing efforts.
KPCB is currently an investor in red-hot Zynga and hot mobile company, ngmoco, both based in San Francisco. Despite those investments, the firm is perceived to have ceded some of its preeminence to newer venture firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.
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[...] Just as Morgan Stanley, KPCB is run like a traditional corporation, though in this case Doerr is the proverbial CEO. KPCB has been looking for a digital media partner for months now, as I reported earlier. [...]