VentureCapitalists
Latest
Two years after Fred Wilson dumped AAPL...
We all make predictions that don't turn out as planned. For example, this morning I said I'd have a few beers, enjoy a barbeque in the sun with friends and perhaps go to the cinema tonight. Turns out I have two daughters under the age of 3, so there went my day. But at least I'm not kicking myself like Fred Wilson must be. Wilson is the venture capitalist managing partner of Union Square Ventures who, two years ago, famously announced that he was selling all his shares in Apple because he didn't believe the company was "being straight with investors" over Steve Jobs's health. "My average price on my entire position in Apple is US$96, so I'll take a small loss on this and a small gain on the stock I bought during the meltdown last fall." He sold at $91.36 -- and at close yesterday, Apple shares were at $338.08, up $246.72 or 270 percent. He sold Google at the same time but announced a short time later he was buying back into the search giant. See the chart above for how that one worked out for him. Maybe he only had one share in Apple (although $246.72 would go nearly halfway towards a new iPad 2). Maybe he's happy with that 50 percent-plus gain in Google's value. Or maybe he's still kicking himself now. Me, I think we'll have that barbeque tomorrow. [Via Daring Fireball]
Kleiner Perkins iFund doubles to $200m, investing in iPad apps from Shazam, ngmoco and more
Apple said it expects the iPad to be a "second gold rush" of app development as consumers rush to add content to their new devices, and it looks like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers agrees: the venture capital firm just announced that it's expanding the iFund to $200 million to invest in iPad app development. If you'll recall, the iFund was originally announced alongside the iPhone OS 2.0 SDK, and provided $100 million in total investments to 14 iPhone app developers like Shazam, ngmoco, and Shopkick -- companies responsible for 18 apps that have hit the App Store Top 10. Keep in mind that this money was promised before the iPhone App Store was even launched -- so given how that bet paid off, it's not surprising that KPCB's decided to double down on the iPad, which looks like it'll have even higher app prices. Along with the announcement, some iFund devs announced the following iPad apps: Pinger: Doodle Buddy and Starsmash Booyah: MyTown, a popular location-based game Shazam: Shazam, optimized for the new screen size, ngmoco: Flick Fishing, a new MMO called CastleCraft, Charadium (described as "massively multiplayer Pictionary"), God Finger, We Rule, WarpGate, and one more we missed -- anyone catch it? GOGII: TextPlus Nothing too surprising here, but it looks like the heavy hitters are going to be on the iPad bandwagon from day one -- and pushing hard for this thing to be a success.
