Gold-plated Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KP) is upping its bet on iPad applications.  The partners, in a post on TechCrunch, say that the immense growth projected in the iPad market is leading them to  "double down" by boosting the venture capital firm's fund focused on the iPad -- the iFund -- by $100M to a total size of $200M. Why now? KP partners believe, apparently, that the iPad is ushering in a new phase of innovation comparable to the World Wide Web. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partners John Doerr, Bing Gordon, Chi-Hua Chien and Ellen Pao write that the iPad experience is a follow-on boom to the Web:

The rest of the 90’s were a ONCE-in-a-lifetime experience. Entrepreneurs created the Web, and great ventures – Netscape, Amazon, Ebay, Google, and others. And they changed our lives. Silicon Valley became the Florence of the New, Networked Economy. The advent of the iPad feels like deja-vu, like it’s happening all over again. Not once, but TWICE-in-a-lifetime.

The VC partners have funded 14 companies, with 3 in stealth mode. The companies include Booyah, Cooliris, GOGII, iControl, InMobi, ngmoco, Pelago, Pinger, Shazam, shopkick, and Zynga mobile. KP partners say the companies in the iFund have generated more than 100 million downloads and that they expect the companies to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year. To read the full article, go here.