Facebook to invest in technology start-ups in India

Social media major Facebook is gearing up to make substantial investments in technology start-ups in India, a top official from the company said here on Friday.

Ajit Mohan, the company's India vice-president and managing director, said they are willing to make direct investments in technology start-ups in India.

"We are willing to spend our time and energy to tap the massive depth of engineering talent in the country," said Mohan while addressing the opening session of the second edition of 'Huddle Kerala 2019,' a start-up meet here.

"A couple of months ago, we announced the first minority investment that Facebook has done anywhere in the world in a company called Meesho. What Meesho does is it relies on the existing behaviour of communities in India and leverages on women entrepreneurs essentially pitching products to their friends and families," added Mohan.

He went on to add that the best thing about their model was it could bring 2,00,000 first-time female entrepreneurs online.

"It is an innovation that was coming out of India which can be exported to the rest of the world, and that model has scaled a dramatic impact in job creation. Any analysis of the economy, most of the job creation happens from small business," he said.

Anil Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), said other states should replicate the Kerala model in building the start-up ecosystem.

"Around 1.95 start-ups are getting registered every hour in the country. In the next month, it may be two start-ups per hour. We have 22,895 registered start-ups in the country as per the records till September. Around 45 per cent of start-ups have come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. About 9 to 10 per cent start-ups have women as founders, and we have to promote women entrepreneurs," said Agarwal.