Ifund Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Apperian picks up first enterprise iFund payout

by Mike Schramm (Mar 30th, 2011)

The iFund has been pretty influential ever since it was announced a couple of years ago -- it's a pool of money set up by Apple and a few other companies to support and grow companies that are contributing to the iOS ecosystem. It's been growing along with Apple's platform, and now the fund has ...

Booyah raises $20m, aims for 6m users

by Mike Schramm (May 18th, 2010)

I've lately been guessing that Booyah might eventually hook up with Ngmoco, since they're both iPhone gaming/app companies with somewhat similar goals that could help each other out. But it looks like Booyah doesn't need any help any more -- it's just raised a whopping $20 million from investors in ...

iFund doubles to $200 million, supporting Ngmoco, Booyah, and others on the iPad

by Mike Schramm (Apr 1st, 2010)

The iFund has been one of the driving forces behind some of the biggest names in iPhone development, so it's not a surprise at all that the investors are expanding their money pool and oversight to include the iPad as well. They're opening up the funding to a full $200 million (double what the ...

Smule raises $3.9 million in funding

by Mike Schramm (Feb 13th, 2009)

There's money in them thar App Store! Smule, the company behind the popular Ocarina and Zephyr apps for the iPhone, has informed us that they raised a whopping $3.9 million from a round of venture funding led by a firm named Granite Ventures. That's a lot of capital -- while a lot of people are ...

NGmoco announces new games, will publish Rolando

by Mike Schramm (Oct 16th, 2008)

Ngmoco, the strangely-named iPhone gaming startup that's one of the recipients of the iFund, has announced their first three planned games for the iPhone. First of all, they're planning to act as publishers for the Rolando game we've been so excited about, a puzzle platformer with touch and physics ...

The iFund's VCs start blogging

by Mike Schramm (Sep 16th, 2008)

When Apple first announced the iFund a while back, the idea seemed pretty opaque by its very nature -- the plan was to invest $100 million in people and companies who were interested in developing innovating apps for the iPhone. But that could be anybody, and though we've heard a few peeps from them ...

App Store on track to do a billion items by 2009

by Mike Schramm (Sep 15th, 2008)

You read that right -- it took the iTunes Store a few years, but as Roughly Drafted has calculated, Apple's App Store is on track, even if growth stops right now, to hit a billion apps served up by 2009. Obviously not all of those are paid apps, but by any count, that's a ton of applications ...

iFund taken out for a Whrrl

by Mat Lu (May 28th, 2008)

At the iPhone SDK event back in March one of the most curious announcements was the existence of the $100 million iFund. Famed silicon valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers established it to "fund innovators developing applications, services, and components for Apple's ...

iFund: $100M for iPhone/iPod touch devs

by Scott McNulty (Mar 6th, 2008)

One of the most surprising announcements from today's Apple shindig (at least to me) was the iFund from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. This $100 million fund will invest in companies, large or small, that want to develop innovative apps for both the iPhone and the iPod touch. The iFund will ...