Alert: Kleiner Perkins announces $100M iFund

Some of our VC readers may have missed the news, because it was buried somewhat in our larger story today about Apple’s iPhone news.

But Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley’s more respected VC firms, announced a massive fund to spur the development of applications for the iPhone. This “iFund” will dish out $100 million to developers, no doubt exciting developers even more about creating applications for the iPhone. You can submit an application to the fund here.

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Kleiner’s John Doerr made the announcement. It is significant because Kleiner has focused most of its energy on clean-tech and pandemic initiatives lately, and has been seen by some as veering away from investments in information technology. The iFund continues Kleiner’s history of making bold initiatives to bet on platforms. You’ll remember its bet on Java technologies more than a decade ago, with it launched a Java fund (see our story about the Java Fund here).

The firm said the iFund will be led by KPCB partner Matt Murphy in collaboration with partners Doerr, Bill Joy, Randy Komisar, Ted Schlein, Chi-Hua Chien and Ellen Pa.

Kleiner said its existing companies Pelago, Dash, GOGII, and Pinger will collaborate closely with the iFund initiative.