Social media platform Facebook on Thursday said that it has given benefits to Indian app developers worth $20 million since 2014 under its FBStart initiative to help them build as well as monetise their apps.FBStart is an initiative under which Facebook is tying up with developers who would produce apps for their platform or integrate Facebook tools and services in them. Under the programme, the social networking site has already given away benefits worth $50 million in Asia Pacific."App developers continue to be a very important part of our ecosystem and we also have grown from a small size, so we understand the neeed of helping the small startups that are trying to do good work. It is in our DNA," said Facebook's director, Product Platform Partnerships, Ime Archibong."Through this initiative, Facebook wants to help take care of certain aspects, so that the developers can focus on building world-class products," he added.India has the second highest number of developers after the US under the FBStart initiative.
"More developers are building apps with Facebook in India than any other country outside the US and today, more than 75 per cent of top-grossing apps in India are integrated with Facebook," Archiebong said.Pan Asia, Facebook has more than 1,000 members as part of the FbStart programme."With millions of people still not yet connected to the Internet in India and around the world, there is a huge opportunity for mobile developers to build some of the first experiences people have with the Internet," he said.Archibong said that through programmes like FbStart and Internet.Org that opened its platform to developers, Facebook aims to help build better connectivity in the world which in turn will benefit the end-user with an unique experience.The benefits of the FBStart programme are divided into three categories with the bigger and more stable firms getting $80,000 as support along with free tools and services. The medium-sized firm or firms at a lesser maturity stage get $30,000 from the networking site. The firms more at the idea-level are awarded $15,000.