Kleiner Perkins launches $100 million iPhone Fund
The US venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) has announced that it will be investing $100 million into developing iPhone applications. There’s been a lot of interest in Apple’s recent SDK launch, with over 100,000 downloads of the development software occurring in its first week of availability.
KPCB said the iFund would invest in companies with “market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform.” They reckon that the paid-for applications market could lead to the emergence of significant new companies. In June, Apple launches its AppStore which will allow users to purchase third party apps.
The fund will focus on location-based services, social networking, m-commerce, communication and entertainment.
Music companies are still unaware whether Apple will allow them to develop apps. Rhapsody and Napster both require software and digital rights management, so it’s very unlikely that we will see them appearing on the iPhone. There are grey areas though. Amazon and eMusic are iTunes challengers, but they could foreseeably fit within the development framework.
The SDK does not expressly ban music apps, but I don’t think any developer is going to be able to make a useful one. The apps won’t be able to access your iTunes library, or any part of the iPhone fileserver. Apple is also notoriously funny about moving music files between computers. In the beta version of the SDK, developers will have no access to iTunes-style functionality. It doesn’t look hopeful, Amazon.
