Facebook to Offer Grants For Software Developers [WSJ]
By VAUHINI VARA
September 17, 2007 9:51 p.m.
Facebook Inc., the social-networking company, is launching a $10 million fund to give grants to individuals and startups building applications on its platform.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said at the TechCrunch 40 technology conference in San Francisco that it will give grants of $25,000 to $250,000 to people making "innovative and disruptive" Web-based services that interact with Facebook, using a set of tools that Facebook has made available since May. Facebook will administer the fund, and its investors the Founders Fund and Accel Partners will provide the funding.
Other venture-capital firms have lately announced plans to invest in individuals or groups developing applications for Facebook's so-called "platform." But rather than taking an equity stake in the entities it funds right away, FB Fund will reserve the right to be the first to do so later.
The investment committee that will make decisions about giving grants will be comprised of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, and Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook vice president of product marketing and operations. Facebook board members Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund will also be part of the committee.
Additionally, the fund will have an advisory council that includes Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of LinkedIn; Josh Koppelman, founder of First Round Capital; and Rajeev Motwani, professor of computer science at Stanford University and an early advisor to Google. |
