The Canada Media Fund on Tuesday said it poured another $16 million into its experimental stream, with the biggest bucks going to smartphone and tablet apps.

Signaling a subtle shift towards investing in innovation software, in addition to interactive content, the evolving industry fund distributed $4 million in development coin to 14 projects as part of its 2011-2012 second round decisions.

The biggest bets by the CMF include interactive set maker Moment Factory in Montreal receiving $451,000 for ts proprietary application software, X-Agora Grand Public.

Moment Factory provides cascading light and sound shows for big-named entertainers like Celine Dion, Madonna and Jay-Z.

Other development project recipients include Toronto-based Divani Films receiving $500,000 to fund a tablet app for its virtual history of Fort York, and Montreal-based Bubl Inc. receiving $424,230 to develop an app for the web, PC computers, smartphones and tablets.

Another 23 projects received production coin from the CMF’s experimental stream, with each getting an average cash infusion of $520,000.

The biggest recipient was Moonray Studios, which secured $995,000 for Apptui, an app that enables users to connect to a digital sign via their smartphone, or link an iPad and a PC computer.

With its latest funding decisions, the CMF is changing its definition of what is experimental to put more focus on innovation and, while not investing in pure R&D, the fund is looking to back technology that relates to Canadian culture, via software applications.

Natalie Clermont, director of program management at the CMF, tells Playback that any current shift to software applications in large part reflects the projects that were proposed by digital producers in the first place as part of the latest financing round.

“I don’t see a big shift in terms of what we are financing. We have a lot of diversity. But we are open to games, apps and interactive content,” she said.

But Clermont conceded the CMF, and industry applicants, are getting a better understanding of what an innovation fund that started out as an imperfectly defined “experimental” stream now looks like.

“We were mandated by the government to have an experimental stream, and that’s what we call it,” she said of the CMF in its earliest incarnation.

And the fund early-on cast its net widely for projects to back.

Now that’s changing as the CMF looks to back games and apps, in addition to interactive content, not least for a payback on the fund’s equity investment.

“We realize that if it’s too experimental, it’s probably not going to be commercial enough and there’s a lot of chances that the project may not make it to the market in the end,” Clermont said. “And we don’t want to invest in pure R&D.”

And the technology producers may well develop an app with a “wow factor,” according to industry insiders, that the CMF can’t ignore politically as it looks to impress Heritage Canada with one or two projects that pay off handsomely.