Kleiner Perkins raises $100m to back iPhone, iPad apps

With the imminent arrival of the iPad, one of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture capitalists has raised another $100 million to back apps development for the new tablet and other Apple devices.

 

Kleiner Perkins has doubled its original $100 million iFund, which was set up two years to invest in iPhone and iPod Touch applications.

 

The company says it has spent nearly all of the original cash, while its leaders talk up the iPad and its impact on the world of apps. 

 

John Doerr, a Kleiner Perkins partner, said the new tablet computer “would trigger a second wave of innovation that would match the one generated by the launch of the iPhone three years ago, and could even eventually exceed it,” FT.com reported.

 

He said much of the current $100 million would be aimed at backing apps for the iPad, including two companies developing exclusively for the new device.

 

The original iFund had invested in 14 developers, four of which had now reached cash flow profitability, Doerr said.

 

He described the arrival of the iPad as the “third renaissance in software… we’re going to move beyond spreadsheets and word processors and browsers.”

 

FT.com said the company’s decision to invest $100 million in iPhone apps in the early days of the device “became one of the most visible expressions of confidence that an important new technology platform had arrived.”

 

Another Kleiner exec, Matt Murphy, told GigaOm that the iPad offers way to “seamlessly and quickly move between content and sites. It’s that much more graceful; it doesn’t feel like a choppy web experience.”

 

“Because of that I think it’ll give you a new type of browsing and a new type of engaging with content.”