Facebook plans ‘multi-million dollar’ venture fund: Report

San Francisco, June 11 (IANS) On the lines of Microsoft venture fund M12 that is helping B2B software startups in emerging technologies, Facebook is reportedly establishing its own multi-million dollar fund to invest in “leading private companies alongside top venture capital firms and angel investors”, The Axios reported on Thursday.

The social media giant has been hiring seasoned tech investors within its New Product Experimentation (NPE) team to lead the upcoming venture fund.

Facebook confirmed the hiring to Axios without naming the new employee to head the venture or revealing the size of the fund.

“Starting a formal investing programme aimed at startups could bolster the company’s ability to spot the next big social app before it becomes big,” the report said.

Facebook recently posted a job opening looking for a “head of investments”.

“In this role, you will manage a multi million dollar fund that invests in leading private companies alongside top venture capital firms and angel investors,” Facebook said in the now-deleted job posting.

“You will develop investment and impact theses, lead the execution of new investments, and support existing portfolio companies as needed”.

Facebook recently invested $5.7 billion (approx. Rs 43,574 crore) in Reliance Jio but the new venture is a different approach focused on startups.

Facebook’s NPE team is aimed at developing experimental apps for consumers who are still slightly removed from the core Facebook brand. It just announced a new iOS app called ‘Collab’, designed for collaborative creation of music videos which takes on Chinese short-video app TikTok.

“Also helping manage the new fund is Shabih Rizvi, a Google and Kleiner Perkins veteran who was most recently at Gradient Ventures, one of the corporate venture firms owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company,” said the report.

–IANS

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