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A new fund for investing in social networking start ups has been launched, backed by major players such as Facebook, Zynga, Amazon and the VC firm Perkins Caulfield and Byers.
The sFund will provide access to funds as well as expertise for a new generation of start ups aimed at delivering the next generation of innovative services to the social web. While there’s money on the table, others are providing services to help get start ups off the ground such as Facebook providing access to API functionality and support and Amazon providing free business platform access for a year.
The sFund is being managed by former EA creative executive Bing Gordon and the main target of investment will be towards start-ups in the social networking space in consumer, mobile and enterprise although unsurprisingly the group will not invest in direct competitors to fund partners such as Amazon and Facebook.
The first investment of the sFund was also announced at the launch event at Facebook headquarters with $5 million being invested in Cafebots, described as a business looking to “social network friends relationship management.”
"There’s going to be an opportunity over the next five years or so to pick any industry and rethink it in a social way," said Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.
“Over the next few years we’ll see the companies that have ‘baked in’ social will be the ones that will succeed. Companies five years out will look a lot like Zynga.”
