Kleiner Perkins Doubles iPad App VC Funding to $200 Million

Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers announced that it has doubled its investment in the iFund program to promote the development of innovative applications -- including games -- for Apple's upcoming iPad. The $100 million iFund was introduced in March of 2008 to encourage developers to create applications for Apple's iPhone. The iFund currently promotes 14 ventures, including prominent App Store publisher ngmoco and social games pioneer Zynga. At an event held yesterday in Menlo Park, California, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr revealed that the company will double its iFund investment to $200 million, in anticipation of the iPad's U.S. launch on April 3rd. More than 20 iPad applications are backed by the iFund, 11 of which will debut in Apple's App Store on the iPad's first day of release. ngmoco will publish 7 iPad launch titles, with an enhanced version of its social village sim We Rule currently in development. In remarks reported on by TechCrunch from the event, ngmoco CEO Neil Young noted that the company saw significant growth thanks to initial iFund support. According to Young, ngmoco's games have been downloaded more than 30 million times, and its users collectively play over 20 million minutes of ngmoco games every day. To date, iFund-supported applications have been downloaded more than 100 million times from the iTunes App Store.