US-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has launched a $250m fund for social media applications and services, in collaboration with e-commerce giant Amazon, platform company Facebook, online games group Zynga, cable companies Comcast and Liberty Media and investment bank Allen & Co.
The firm would not specify how much its strategic partners were investing, but an investor told news provider Fortune that it was about $50m.
In addition to capital, the participating companies will offer access to their services, with Amazon’s providing a year’s use of its Web Services, Facebook offering access to its platform teams, beta applications and online credits, giving training and Comcast Interactive Capital, Comcast’s corporate venturing fund providing an entry tot he broader group’s resources.
Bing Gordon, a former executive with Electronic Arts and partner at Kleiner Perkins, will head the sFund. Including Gordon, 10 US-based Kleiner Perkins partners are working on the fund: Chi-Hua Chien, John Doerr, Eric Feng, Lila Ibrahim, Randy Komisar, Aileen Lee, Matt Murphy, Ellen Pao and Ted Schlein, and another four based in Shanghai, China.
Kleiner Perkins previously launched an iFund for Apple’s applications, although its legendary co-founder Tom Perkins has criticised the use of internal venture capital by companies.
In an interview for MIT Entrepreneurship Review gave the example of Exxon Enterprises, an initiative that Exxon launched in 1960s but completely abandoned in the 1980s, meanwhile losing in excess of $2bn.
Perkins said: "If you’re in a corporation, VC is not your primary focus. In corporations, people constantly change, which undermines continuity. What’s more, if you make an investment and you fail, it won’t look good on your resume." So the concept of intrapreneurship, Tom Perkins said was "hogwash."