Kleiner Perkins’s iFund is a $100 million fund to invest in startups building applications for the iPhone.
Startups that wish to apply for funding can fill out an online application here. That information, which includes contact information, founder bios, the business plan, demos, financial information, etc. is then dumped into a database for review.
That data was accidentally published on the web by Kleiner Perkins’ former hosting provider, Meteora Technologies Group, in a SQL file, which is easily readable in a text editor or other application. The file was then indexed by Google and found in a query on one of the companies (the guys from Fruux found it). Applications from 588 companies are in the file (Google has cached an incomplete version of the file here). A quick perusal shows very detailed information from each of these companies.
Fruux notified Kleiner Perkins and Meteora and the file was removed this morning. I spoke to Lowell Fletcher, the President of Meteora, who says that they no longer work with Kleiner Perkins, and that the file was accidentally published by one of their employees. Kleiner Perkins has not yet responded to our request for comment.
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Ooops
Epic Fail!
hmm…
nothing of any real interesting tech/approaches to most of the apps in the file…
are these the best that get pitched to kliener??
peace..
We submitted our proposal about 10 days ago, not that big of a deal since we are already on app store. However, a few things were not for public consumption.
Somewhat surprised only 588 apps applied, given that there are over 10k apps on the store.
@mike: Are there any estimates on how much revenue the top paid iPhone Apps make? I know you did an article when the store first launched, but I haven’t seen anything since. I think that would be a great article if you can get your hands on that information…
lawsuit?
Free publicity if you ask me.
look at the irony in URL: planet.emeteora.com/NITEMARE/kpcb.sql
It’s still online @ Google cache: http://www.google.com/search?q.....e/kpcb.sql
Seems even Google has wiped this one away now.
Can you post the file on a shared site and provide a link?
its still there
Was anyone able to get a copy of this file posted to another site? It is no longer available and I would be very interested in seeing the names and apps.
thanks to anyone who can forward or point me to a copy.
Kathi
Its no longer there… I need the SQL file. Could anyone post it on Rapidshare or something and post a link back here…
Thanks!
now even me has copy of that file
me too…but only 75 names listed
Can I get it too… I need the file. Pls upload it and reply to my comment with the link. Thanks!
To be added to the laws of physics: Google cache inertia…
great ideas, huh? not really…..
Anyone know what the top apps’ revenues are?
some people don’t seem to have a lot of sense :p
Check out the other awesomeness in that directory:
http://66.218.69.11/search/cac.....p;.intl=us
Hentai anyone?
I wanted to see perfect_woman.jpg there, but couldn’t:-) Just wondering how much KP invested in her
Can someone post a link to the full file please? Or a link to a site that has a link to the full file?
I want to see how many retard applications were submitted.
558 to be exact…according to the title of the posting.
Strange that they’d leave the data in the hands of a provider they’re not working with anymore. Mistakes happen but this is a big one.
Ironic that my first comment using FB connect is about such a blunder by FB’s associates. That is all, just needed to get it out the way…
two words
IndexIgnore *
Let’s all look on the bright side of this debacle - now all these companies can get “funding” via out of court settlements.
why only 75 http://www.google.com/search?q.....e/kpcb.sql ? where are the rest
Let’s all look on the bright side of this debacle - now all these companies can get “funding” via out of court settlements/lawsuits
Actual quote from one of the pitches: “The market [for this software] is potentially is as big as the population of the world….”
Hehe. If they could get, you know, like 1% of that, they would make like a scrillion dollars times infinity, dog!!!
‘’scrillion dollars” thats when you have to scream to express the number?
David, PLEEEASE send me a copy of this! (todd@spiritshop.com)
I can’t wait to see what people are up to.
Did you get a copy of the file or a portion of the file? I would really be interested in taking a look. If so, would you be willing to send a file my way? kathimsanet@gmail.com
thanks
Kathi
David, PLEEEASE send me a copy of this! (todd@spiritshop.com)
I can’t wait to see what people are up to.
I don’t beleive it is accident.
http://www.iamlittle.net
spammers never do
This is absolutely HILARIOUS! Good times…good times. LOL
Is Yahoo Down?
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=yahoo+down%3F
seems like flickr is down too!!
Pretty funny- the best part is that one of the companies found it
After I perused a couple of them, I actually felt a little bad for the person at the KPCB who has to filter through these proposals for John Doerr & company.
First of all, there’s quite a deal of BS/fluff in there.
Second, many of the applicants seem to feel that it’s necessary to evangelize the iPhone in the first several sentences of their pitch even though they’re pitching to a fund that’s *only* interested in iPhone apps.
And third, to put it lightly, some of these applicants aren’t very gifted writers.
-Ash
Heh. My question is whether this level of…quality…is typical of people going to VCs in general. Maybe there just aren’t very many cattle calls such as this one with the iPhone.
Ash, would send me a copy of this?
It would be greatly appreciated since the links are now down.
Thanks
todd@spiritshop.com
My favourite:
“Would love to develop on the platform however I cannot afford an iPhone to decide which application I would like to build. Would love to create an application that utilizes FireEagle from Yahoo with a cross between Twitter status updates.”
I’m the first on that list! Cool! Free publicity!
Not.
I receive many spams and “offers” regarding iPhone since this article.
check this out:
http://web.archive.org/web/200.....~nitemare/
too bad it’s 2005 only, though
You may notice, if you look at the cached list, #24 is Aaron Greenspan, who claimed to have invented Facebook and got into a tussle with Zuckerberg over it.
he’s just so darn prolific
would you mind sending me a copy. I am really interested since I am submitting my own soon!
Thanks,
Todd Sullivan
todd@spiritshop.com
chaqu
Anyone found the full list yet?
hello - kleiner was a big 1999 investor in google, and apple and google share board members and execs - how long did you really think that google would leave this up for? apparently, google honors special favors for information removal - but good luck to the hoi polloi!!
Hopefully those ppl in posession of the full (or partial) list are smart enough to not spread (=delete it) it to other people. Already got a couple of “inquiries” (=spam) to the address in this list.
At least all involved parties (the isp, kpcb and… google) solved this issue rather quickly.
@Todd
You asked now four times - isn’t that kind of ridiculous?
Nobody wants your spam and thus (hopefully) nobody will provide you with the list. Get over it and work hard!
This is very exciting news for us entrepreneurs! To know what’s out there could save us a lot of time, allow us to refocus and potentially offer the world something better. We don’t make it in this world on our own, we rely on each other. So I am always grateful for anyone’s help.
Sorry for the multiple posts . . . I’m simply new to this board.
http://www.spiritshop.com
todd@spiritshop.com
My ride home gave me time to reflect on my impulse to learn more about our future via an obvious inadvertent leak of confidential information. I think this was a mistake. If I were one of the entrepreneurs who’s work was leaked, I would not want this information further shared. Therefore, I would encourage those of you who did manage to mine this information to do the right thing by not passing it along. This was an inadvertent, yet inevitable, mistake of our digital age and I would rather be on the side of helping to minimize the damage to our fellow entrepreneurs than compound this breach. My apologies for previously suggesting otherwise.
I only see 75 applications not 588. Does anyone know why?
It’s not the the Internet Archive, either.
–Mike On the Way to the Web
I would totally be interested in this info as well.
Come on. It’s gone and those who have it are too smart to spread intelectual property of other people to spammers. If I was in that list I would totally sue the crap out of anyone publishing/spreading it.
Looks like iFund is not managed properly - even the website i mean! Surprisingly i had just blogged about how iFund is an oversized fund and a smaller fund in.iFund could do better in this difficult economic times http://iphonedev.in
This got me thinking and led to my five tips for building any web form or service that handles confidential information. Read about the tips here: http://www.trackvia.com/blog/?p=73
This “oops” moment is exactly why many funds are leaving their existing homegrown systems and relying on Angelsoft. (www.angelsoft.net)
When you don’t have a full dedicated staff working on this all day long, its bound to happen. VC funds are flocking to Angelsoft for the protection we provide.
http://blog.angelsoft.net/2008.....ps-moment/
And the added benefit is that funds get to spend less time worrying about technology and more time working on deals.
I have the full list of 588, grabbed it before it was taken down. I will e-mail it to you if you reply to this with at least 500 words of how amazing I am and how worthless you are.
So the immediate problem has been “solved” - someone at Meteora has suffered the consequences, the file server has been locked down, etc. But, of course, it will happen again. Only the next time, it will be a SQL file emailed to the wrong person, or stored on a USB drive that’s lost or a laptop that’s stolen. When are people going to recognize that you protect the data from the get go, and keep it protected all the time? It is being done through encryption and anti-propagation technology by Fortressware (www.fortressw.com).