Kleiner Perkins has just announced that search giant Google has joined the venture firm’s sFund as a strategic partner. Kleiner unveiled the sFund last year $250 million fund dedicated to what partner John Doerr calls the Third Wave. The fund is organized around investing social startups in all industries – consumer, enterprise, health and mobile.
Back in October of 2010, Zynga, Comcast, Allen & Co., Liberty Media, Amazon and Facebook all joined as investors and strategic partners. The $250 million fund makes investments ranging from $100,000 to $100 million, and is led by Kleiner partner Bing Gordon.
Considering the list of initial partners, it was actually surprising that Google didn’t participate at launch considering the company’s own social ambitions. It’s unclear how much Google invested in the sFund to become a strategic partner.
As part of the partnership, Facebook, Amazon, Google and the other partners help provide sFund companies with “special support and networking opportunities.” Previous sFund companies include Lockerz, Erly, Klout, Path, Flipboad, Rent The Runway, Spotify, Square and Cafebots. So far, 16 companies have been funded by the sFund. We’re told that Katango, which was acquired by Google yesterday, is actually the first exit of the sFund.
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