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 Global Agenda power levelingtoday. 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.
According to sFund's Web site, the fund will take on a mentorship role for its portfolio
companies as well, providing "financing, counsel, and relationship capital" to
entrepreneurs.
The initial sFund investment, CafeBots, a "friend relationship management" start-up founded
by four Stanford Ph.D.s, was announced in conjunction with the debut of sFund.
"Our view for the next few years is we just think that every industry is going to get
fundamentally rethought and designed around people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at
the announcement.
In the past, Facebook itself has operated a Global Agenda Goldseed fund and incubator program, FBfund, for
application developers building on its platform. While tapping into the Facebook grid will
invariably be central to many of the companies in which sFund invests, it's not a
requirement.
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said that he believes a fund for social-application development is
necessary because entrepreneurship and innovation are, for once, actually lagging behind
the possibilities that technology offers. "I'm just bugged that there isn't a great travel
service. Why can't I have an app," posited Pincus, "that knows I'm at the airport, that
knows my flight is canceled, it knows I'm traveling with somebody, and it's already
recommended the next option and it'd be sure nice if it could recommend a game I could play
in the meantime."
Doerr said that Zynga, a Kleiner Perkins portfolio company which operates popular social
games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars that have proliferated across the social connections
facilitated by the Facebook platform, is the fastest growing company in the history of the
venture fund.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was on hand as well, talking primarily about the company's Amazon Web
Services (AWS) cloud-service offering and how he hopes that it will help more entrepreneurs
launch innovative new ways to harness the power of the social Web. "These social apps do
tend to be very viral," Bezos said. "It's kind of built into the nature of the application,
and so when they hit they hit fast, they can grow violently, and that really does play to
the strengths of AWS."
Calling the social-media revolution "a Cambrian explosion," he indicated that the maturity
of social-networking pioneers like Facebook,GA credits "this really rich nutrient solution of people
who are connected already," can now facilitate a whole new wave of innovation.
in sFund, a $250 million social-application fund launched by venture capital stalwarts
Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers Global Agenda power levelingtoday. 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.
According to sFund's Web site, the fund will take on a mentorship role for its portfolio
companies as well, providing "financing, counsel, and relationship capital" to
entrepreneurs.
The initial sFund investment, CafeBots, a "friend relationship management" start-up founded
by four Stanford Ph.D.s, was announced in conjunction with the debut of sFund.
"Our view for the next few years is we just think that every industry is going to get
fundamentally rethought and designed around people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at
the announcement.
In the past, Facebook itself has operated a Global Agenda Goldseed fund and incubator program, FBfund, for
application developers building on its platform. While tapping into the Facebook grid will
invariably be central to many of the companies in which sFund invests, it's not a
requirement.
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said that he believes a fund for social-application development is
necessary because entrepreneurship and innovation are, for once, actually lagging behind
the possibilities that technology offers. "I'm just bugged that there isn't a great travel
service. Why can't I have an app," posited Pincus, "that knows I'm at the airport, that
knows my flight is canceled, it knows I'm traveling with somebody, and it's already
recommended the next option and it'd be sure nice if it could recommend a game I could play
in the meantime."
Doerr said that Zynga, a Kleiner Perkins portfolio company which operates popular social
games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars that have proliferated across the social connections
facilitated by the Facebook platform, is the fastest growing company in the history of the
venture fund.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was on hand as well, talking primarily about the company's Amazon Web
Services (AWS) cloud-service offering and how he hopes that it will help more entrepreneurs
launch innovative new ways to harness the power of the social Web. "These social apps do
tend to be very viral," Bezos said. "It's kind of built into the nature of the application,
and so when they hit they hit fast, they can grow violently, and that really does play to
the strengths of AWS."
Calling the social-media revolution "a Cambrian explosion," he indicated that the maturity
of social-networking pioneers like Facebook,GA credits "this really rich nutrient solution of people
who are connected already," can now facilitate a whole new wave of innovation.
