Back in January, we reported on how, 24 hours after Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) announced the iPad’s existence, UK regional development fund Northern Film & Media (NFM) opened a fund with which it would specifically support iPad app developers.
Ten months on, the first funded project has made it on to iTunes Store.
Pitch ‘n Toss is an iPad casual game made by Newcastle creative agency DarlingDash in which players try to toss coins as close to possible against a virtual wall.
NFM’s iPad fund, run for it by former Channel 4 4iP commissioner Ewan McIntosh, has gathered together just over £40,000 with which to fund iPad (and now also iPhone) apps from the north-east of England.
Pitch ‘n Toss cost DarlingDash over £10,000; it received £5,000 from NFM on a match-funding basis. The app sells for £2.99 or a free lite version. NFM and the developer have a revenue-share agreement in place.
NFM’s is not the only iPad dev fund, but it is one of the smallest. Here’s our March 2010 list of those out there, including Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers’ $200 million iFund.
McIntosh tells paidContent:UK another app from NFM’s fund is due by Christmas, with three others under development – one a series of games with a U.S. publisher.
Though 4iP, which also co-invests in creative digital products, is being absorbed in to Channel 4’s wider digital activities, McIntosh reports “no pull back at all” from NFM’s digital fund: “We’re investing more in the next quarter than we’ve done in the six months previously.”