Facebook today announced second year details of its FbStart program with even more benefits, eight new partners, and an additional track for prelaunch startups. The company also revealed that since launching the program, it has distributed more than $100 million in benefits to 3,800 participating startups.
FbStart is a program that provides app developers with free tools and services via two tracks: Boostrap and Accelerate. Facebook first announced it in April, and by July had accepted 62 percent of applicants.
As of today, FbStart member benefits include access to more than 20 partners that provide services ranging from app store optimization to remote workforce management. The new partners are: App Annie, Balsamiq, GitHub, Mobile Action, Namecheap, TransparentBusiness, Yandiki, and Zendesk.
Since launch, Facebook has more than doubled the value of each track’s benefits (from $5,000 to $30,000 and from $30,000 to $80,000, respectively). Now it is introducing a new track and additional packages:
Pre-launch track: Designed to provide partner benefits such as domain hosting, access to legal services, or wire-framing services, for example, that mostly help developers who are still building out ideas and haven’t launched their app.
Games package: Offered in addition to standard FbStart tracks, the Games package includes mentorship from the Facebook Games team and benefits relevant to game developers.
Social Good package: Offered in addition to standard FbStart tracks, the Social Good package includes mentorship opportunities with the Internet.org team, and exclusive partner benefits like growth and fundraising consulting from I.G. Advisors, social media consulting from Social Misfits, and access to services from Praekelt Foundation.
Facebook is also planning an FbStart World Tour this year. Last year, the company hosted startup events in more than 10 countries, and in 2015 it is “doubling that investment” with a 20-city world tour that kicks off on June 1, 2015 in London.
Here is the rough schedule:
June – London, New York City
July – Denver, Mexico City
August – Chicago, Hong Kong, Montréal, Seoul, Toronto
September – Singapore, Taipei
October – Bogota, São Paulo, Seattle, Vancouver
November – Boston, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Helsinki
December – Austin
Startups interested in joining FbStart can apply for the program directly at FbStart.com. For existing members, Facebook will be reaching out with details on how they can take advantage of everything above.
