Strengthening its commitment to accelerate the growth of small and medium businesses in the country, Facebook has announced its tie-up with the VC fund Stellaris Venture Partners to scale young businesses by providing them with timely digital skilling support.
The partnership is a part of Facebook’s VC Brand Incubator Program, which is an industry-first initiative for building the ecosystem for SMB growth in the country along with leading venture capital funds, and providing young businesses with timely business skilling and customised training to improve key profitability levers such as new customer acquisition, reach, and brand engagement.
The partnership with Stellaris Venture Partners marks the completion of a two years milestone of the VC Brand Incubator Program. In just a span of 24 months since its inception, Facebook has tied-up with nine VC funds and has successfully skilled, trained, and mentored more than 200 small businesses at various stages of their growth journey. Prior to the partnership with Stellaris Venture Partners, Facebook has partnered with Sauce.vc, Fireside Ventures, Elevation Capital [SAIF Partners], Surge [Sequoia], DSG Consumer Partners, Matrix Partners, Anthill Ventures, and Kae Capital for the program.
Talking about the VC Brand Incubator Program, and the latest partnership with Stellaris Venture Partners, Archana Vohra, Director, Small and Medium Businesses at Facebook India said, “We know that timely skilling can unlock multiple growth opportunities for small businesses that are the backbone of India’s economy. As business after business moves online in current times, the need for timely digital up-skilling becomes even more urgent to drive their recovery and growth. Facebook is committed to the economic recovery of India, and as we mark the two years’ milestone for the program, we are delighted to partner with Stellaris Venture Partners to help early stage SMBs to unleash their true potential to grow and scale their business.”
Stellaris Venture Partners is an early stage, technology-focused venture capital firm working with SMBs such as Boldcare, Beepkart, CredFlow, Propelld, Whatfix and many more. Their investment focus areas include global software companies with an India advantage, as well as tech businesses solving India-specific problems.
Said Rahul Chowdari, Partner/Co-Founder, Stellaris Venture Partners, “Stellaris is committed to providing platforms to founders that help them build world-class companies and our partnership with Facebook is another step in that direction. Startups and small businesses are going to be the key drivers of growth and employment in the future and programs like the VC Brand Incubator will go a long way to boost the start-ups and small businesses ecosystem in the country. The VC Brand Incubator helps entrepreneurs to understand the Facebook ecosystem better and avoid common mistakes.”