John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, the well-known Silicon Valley venture capital fund, says that social businesses are the ‘third wave’ of internet startups and says this is the reason the venture capital firm launched its $250m fund for startups called sFund. Doerr says that the fund will invest in companies – figures can expect to start from $100,000 to $100 million, focusing on companies that offer social applications.
A number of big-name businesses have committed money to the fund, including Amazon, Zynga, Comcast and Allen & Co. The fund is interested in investing in social startups across industry sectors ranging from enterprise to health to mobile and consumer. The fund has already made its first $5 million investment in Cafebots, a startup still under wraps but which says it plans to establish FRM – friendship relationship management.
Doerr told TechCrunch that even though the rise of Facebook is clearly important the internet revolving around social interaction is only getting started, saying that there may be a number of social networks. He says that social is the most important social platform to focus on, saying that Facebook has a range of options when considering where to spend its resources.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, an investor in the fund, says that the web is being rebuilt around people and that at this point any app, website or device can be designed around people from the ground up. Zuckerberg says that the fund has the aim of investing in companies who can disrupt their industries.
