Facebook plans to tap start-ups, small and medium businesses in India

Facebook aimed to enable the growth of small and medium businesses and entrepreneurship in the country

Facebook is nurturing a lot of start-ups and small and medium businesses to tap their innovations and be part of their fast growth by providing mentoring and technology to help them scale. These include businesses such as consumer electronics startups, cafe chains, used-car retailers, travel commerce firms and female wellness brands.

The social media giant on Thursday announced a collaboration with venture capital SAIF Partners, aimed to enable the growth of small and medium businesses (SMBs) and entrepreneurship in the country.

The partnership is a part of Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program, which is an industry-first initiative launched in June for building the ecosystem for SMB growth. It provides young businesses with timely skilling and guidance. In just five months, the VC Brand Incubator Program has tied up with three venture capital funds - Sauce.VC, Fireside Ventures, and now SAIF Partners. In partnership with these three venture capital funds, Facebook has already skilled, trained, and mentored more than 70 brands at various stages of their growth journey.

“Our vast experience with SMBs tells us that strong digital skills and timely guidance can help them succeed and increase profits quickly. Facebook has consistently delivered business results for SMBs, and through the VC Brand Incubator Program and the latest partnership with SAIF Partners we’ve deepened our commitment to the growth of small businesses and entrepreneurship in India,” said Archana Vohra, director, small and medium businesses at Facebook India. “Businesses from across industries and at different stages of their growth journey have experienced measurable and positive business impact as a result of this program, and with SAIF Partners on board we now have an opportunity to deliver an even larger impact.”

SAIF has been an early-stage investor in top brands such as MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow, Justdial.com, and Paytm. Deepak Gaur, managing director, SAIF Partners said through this partnership it aims to create a platform for young consumer companies to learn from the Facebook leadership as well as each other about the best practices and the playbook for scaling on Facebook’s family of apps. “We believe that programs like the VC Brand Incubator will go a long way in helping early-stage consumer-focused companies avoid common mistakes, enabling them to create differentiated brand awareness on digital platforms in the most efficient manner,” said Gaur.

Twenty-four brands associated with SAIF Partners have now become a part of Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program. These include the cafe chain Chaayos, online used car retailer Spinny, travel commerce startup Airblack and hygiene products brand Peebuddy.

Ritika Gupta, director and co-founder of KalkiFashion said it became a part of the VC Brand Incubator Program in July this year.  “Since then we’ve been able to increase traffic on our website by nearly 50 per cent, get new customers, and have seen revenue from Facebook increase by almost 30 per cent,”  said Gupta.

Raghav Verma, co-founder of Chaayos said Facebook and Instagram are important platforms for the firm to communicate with its audience. “The session with Facebook experts helped us understand the new rules for winning on these new-age mediums. We have already run pilot campaigns, and seen tangible results by leveraging the right audience, mood, and creative designs,” said Verma.

Aman Gupta, co-founder of consumer electronics firm boAt said Facebook's support has helped the firm propel its business and attain 10X growth in scale. “This has been achieved via their special events, managed support, and guidance around the best practices. The program helps a brand like us grow manifold by driving business outcomes,” said Gupta.

On Thursday, during Q3 earnings call for the period ending September 30, 2019, Dave Wehner, chief financial officer, Facebook said the company is pleased with the growth of the Facebook Community this quarter, as daily active users reached 1.62 billion, up 9 per cent compared to last year led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. This represents approximately 66 per cent of the 2.45 billion monthly active users in September, said Wehner.