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Facebook and Zynga sign up for social start-up fund

Online giants join creators of iFund in $250 million investment scheme

Facebook and Zynga are among the companies who've signed up with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as part of a new investment fund targeting social-related start up companies.The fund has already invested $5 million in CafeBots, a 'friend relationship management' company.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is the investment specialist behind the successful iFund, which put up $200 million in funding for iPad, iPhone and iPod related start-ups - doubling the fund when Apple released the iPad.

Kleiner Perkins partner Bing Gordon is heading up the fund, and described the social aspects of the internet as "just beginning" at an event at Facebook headquarters to announce the formation of the fund. He also credited Zynga with alerting Kleiner Perkinjs to the scale of the social app market.

"With the arrival of Zynga, we discovered (that the social) application opportunity was going to be enormous," Gordon told investors.

Joining Facebook and Zynga in the scheme are Amazon, Comcast, Liberty Media, and Allen & Co. who will all take roles as 'strategic partners'.