Facebook, the American social media conglomerate corporation has tied-up with early stage venture capital (VC) fund Matrix Partners to scale small businesses in India by providing them with timely digital skilling support. The tie-up is a part of Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program that collaborates with venture capital funds to help early-stage small and medium businesses (SMBs) to maximize their digital potential, the social media conglomerate stated in a statement.

“With the tie-up with Matrix Partners India, the programme also completes one year during which it has collaborated with six VC Funds - Sauce.VC, Fireside Ventures, SAIF Partners, Sequoia Capital, DSG Ventures, and Matrix Partners India - and skilled, trained, and mentored more than 150 brands at various stages of their growth journey,” says Facebook.

Looking at the pandemic situation, Facebook has taken the programme online to ensure continued skilling and support for small businesses. The ‘Boost with Facebook’ program went virtual in May reaching out to 4X more people than in an in-person event. The ‘FB Advertiser Vintage’ program that focused on skilling young businesses, pivoted to webinars offering custom solution, customer acquisition, and test and learn assistance. This program will skill more than 3,000 businesses this year, the statement said.

“Facebook is committed to supporting the growth of small businesses in India, and this charter is stronger than ever as we work towards enabling their recovery

The tie-up is a part of Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program that collaborates with venture capital funds to help early-stage small and medium businesses to maximize their digital potential

from the pandemic. We are thrilled to partner with Matrix Partners India as part of the VC Brand Incubator Program to scale and support small businesses at such a critical time. In light of the current constraints, we’ve taken the initiative online along with a host of our other skilling initiatives such as Boost with Facebook and Advertiser Vintage program to ensure uninterrupted skilling and support for small businesses,” says Archana Vohra, Director (SMBs), Facebook India.

“We’re excited to create a platform of partnership between our portfolio companies and Facebook. Brand building is a crucial part of growing and scaling your company, and Facebook’s incubator program is a great stepping stone for early stage consumer-focused companies who are looking to build awareness and engagement with a digital audience. We’ve been early backers in many challenger brands from across the spectrum – eCommerce, gaming, CPG, neo-banking, healthcare, content – to name a few, and we’re thrilled to see them create world-beating products and leverage Facebook’s platform to reach their end consumers, and bring about large scale impact. Over 20 companies from our portfolio, including Country Delight, Stanza Living, OZiva, ManMatters, Zupee, The Whole Truth, Dealshare, have now partnered with Facebook on this program,” stated Sanjot Malhi, Director, Matrix India.

As part of the VC Brand Incubator Program, Facebook has also started Campaign Lab that helps direct-to-consumer small businesses get creative solution support, and go live with mobile friendly creative and strategy in under 72 hours.