14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has announced the winners of the third fbFund, its grant program created in partnership with Accel Partners and Founders Fund to help the development of new promising Facebook applications. Twenty companies were chosen out of the finalists and the winners will be invited to participate in its new incubator program, called fbFund REV 2009, in Palo Alto, California, over the course of this summer. The 50 finalists for the program, who were rewarded with $1000 worth of advertising, were announced beforehand but the real challenge was getting in the incubator program.
"Already planned are sessions with speakers from our fbFund Advisory Council, business luminaries, and our Facebook Platform team focused on everything from operating lean startups and metrics for success to marketing and monetization," company representative Cat Lee wrote in a post on the Facebook developer blog. "The days will be packed with opportunities to get together, learn from one another, brainstorm and iterate on applications and business models. At the end of the summer, all of the startups will present to Silicon Valley angel and venture capital investors to get feedback and explore investment opportunities."
The twenty companies, including two nonprofits, will take part in the program and for the next two months they will work on improving their Facebook applications, Facebook Connect-related services or iPhone apps, as well as have the chance to work with Facebook engineers and other experts. The program will be headed by Founders Fund's Dave McClure. The participants will receive $25,000 on average for investment with the total sum adding to over $500,000. The nonprofits will not receive any funding of course but will take part in the program at no charge. The fbFund will however get a percentage in the company, between 1-5%. The full list of winners can be found here.