Facebook announces incentive fund for application developers
Because opening up the site just wasn't enough, apparently: Facebook is branching into a new role as an investor. The company has announced a new program called FBFund to provide grants to developers who are interested in creating applications for the Facebook Platform. FBFund, with cash infused by Facebook investors Accel Partners and the Founders Fund, will start with $10 million and will provide $25,000-$250,000 grants to developers who apply for the program. The fund's investment committee will consist of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, vice president of product marketing and operations Charmath Palihapitaya, and board members Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund.
The big requirement: the developer in question, who may be an individual or company, may not have raised prior formal venture funding. No equity or debt will be associated with participating developers, and the only major condition (at least for now) is that the money awarded must be used to develop the company in question on the Facebook Platform.
A release from the company explained the FBFund program: "By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow."
An advisory council, with members including LinkedIn founder and chairman Reid Hoffman, First Round Capital founder Josh Koppelman, and Stanford University computer science professor Rajeev Motwani, will oversee the application and approval process. (Stanford, as you may recall from last week's news, has created an entire class based around the development of Facebook Platform applications, but Motwani does not appear to be affiliated with it.) No formal site has been created for FBFund, but interested applicants are now encouraged to mail their business plans to platform@facebook.com.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
The real question comes down to how is the company monetized after burning through the startup capital?
Can this capital be used to also attract other investors?
Last, shouldn't CNET have a chicklet to "Post to Facebook" similar to what they have to post to digg, etc.
Andrew Kaplan
www.facebookenthusiast.com
- Trip Match - My First Candidate...
- by TomerH September 18, 2007 5:25 PM PDT
- What a brilliant move by Facebook. Not only this will boost the overall awareness to the Facebook community but it will also take the Facebook applications to the next level. I would even consider adding a twist and allow Facebook users to recommend their most favorite apps. For example, I have recently came across a new application called 'Trip Match' (by TripWiser.com), which is an online social trip planning service that brings the power of Web 2.o and social networks together, amazing. If Facebook users could recommend their top applications to win the incentive fund - imagine the impact on application developers...Power to the people!
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- Facebook Applications
- by remita10 September 25, 2007 6:58 AM PDT
- I will check it out, but must admit so far I didn't find facebook applications useful at all so I'm a bit skeptic.
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