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Facebook seeks kick-starting more African startups

Cape Town - Social networking giant Facebook kicked off its first FbStart roadshow event in Africa on Tuesday as the company seeks helping more local startups to get off the ground.

FbStart, which had its first African event at AfricaCom in Cape Town this week, is Facebook’s global programme to help mobile start-ups build and grow their businesses.

The initiative is open to developers who have launched apps on the likes of the Google Android Play Store and Apple’s iOS platform. This week, FbStart has also opened itself up to developers who build bot apps for Facebook Messenger.

FbStart has this year added Cape Town to its list of places where it holds its global roadshow. Other cities on the roadshow include New York and London.

Startups that apply for FbStart, and which get accepted into the programme, can then get free services such as hosting, and access to tools like MailChimp and App Annie.

"Really the aim of the programme is to empower or support this ecosystem, especially people who creating or launching products in the region...with the basic tools and offerings that they need to get off the ground and launch and grow their businesses,” Emeka Afigbo, Facebook’s Strategic Products Partnerships Manager, told Fin24.

"And this is done by giving them access to a number of offerings which typically these startups have to pay a lot of money for and things that are crucial at the initial stage of their growth.

"So, we are giving them free access to these tools and platforms, and this for a year, six months so that they can use this to get off the ground,” said Afigbo.

Several thousand people are already part of FbStart across the globe and those that have access to the programme also have a network of businesses and even Facebook employees to lean on.

"They've got access to people who may work at Facebook, we may have expertise in some of things they are thinking about. And hopefully this can also help them grow their business,” said Afigbo.

The debut launch of an FbStart event in Cape Town comes amid a growing startup presence in Africa, said Afigbo.

Facebook has already been hosting a number of developer forums in Africa in recent years, he explained.

Meanwhile, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on his trip to Africa in September, also visited the iHub in Nairobi, Kenya. The iHub, along with other tech hubs in Africa, has become synonymous for helping to develop the continent’s top new startups.

"The signals have always been there,” said Afigbo regarding Africa’s tech startup scene.

"In the last few years, the signals have increased,” he added.

"People are looking at local challenges and coming up with solutions,” added Afigbo.

Facebook’s focus on startups comes as its own social networking business has exploded in recent years.

According to statistics provided by Facebook, the company recorded 1.8bn monthly active users for the third quarter of 2016.

In Africa, Facebook says it has over 80m monthly active users, of which 36m use the service every day on mobile.

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