$150 Million BlackBerry Partners Fund Spreads The Wealth

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Jason Kincaid

TechCrunch.com
Tuesday, October 28, 2008; 9:07 PM

The BlackBerry Partners Fund, a $150 million VC fund co-managed by JLA Ventures and RBC Venture Partners, has announced its first three investments:

The first is for buzzd, a geo-aware social network that also doubles as a location information guide. BlackBerry Partners Fund participated in a $3.2 million Series A Round, along with Greycroft Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, and Monitor Ventures.

The second is for Digby, a mobile ecommerce company, that closed a $5.5 million Series B round with BBPF and existing investors.

The third is for WorldMate, a company that produces software for travelers, offering tools for trip management and information lookup. The company closed an $8 million Series C round with BBPF, AMC Communications, and Motorola Ventures.

The race is on for mobile platform supremacy, and venture capitalists are eager to get in on the action. The BlackBerry Partners Fund faces off with the the Kleiner Perkins $100 million iFund, which sets aside money exclusively for iPhone developers. Google has also initiated its own funding competition with the $10 Million Android Challenge last year.