It is hard to argue social media network provider Facebook has missed out on much over the past 15 or so years.
But there has always been a nagging feeling its engagement with external startups has been a little lacking. Its fbFund in 2007 was interesting and worked with top venture capital firms and the company has certainly drunk the cool aid that corporate role is to buy the venture-backed startups.
Facebook’s acquisitions of Whatsapp, Instagram and Oculus VR and about 80 others have been or could be transformative to how people communicate and network.
These types of deals, however, will be harder to do in future given looming antitrust actions.
Venture deals might also come into this net but there is more room to wriggle with authorities it is an open competitive market in the same way Microsoft invested in Apple to keep it alive in the 1990s and fend off monopoly worries.
Facebook has smartly read the runes and under Ime Archibong set up the New Product Experimentation (NPE) team for development of apps and now corporate venturing dealmaking, according to news provider Axios.
Archibong has reportedly hired Shabih Rizvi, a founding partner at Gradient Ventures, one of the corporate venture firms owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company and GCV Rising Stars winner in 2018.
“In the same spirit that the New Product Experimentation (NPE) group is charged with product experimentation, the team is also experimenting with ways to support external startups, including with capital,” Facebook said in a statement to Axios.
Facebook’s corporate development teams already invest in companies, such as its recent $5.7bn stake in India’s Jio Platforms but NPE is a separate effort focused on small stakes in startups, Axios added.
