Facebook revealed that it would put up a base at Station F, a startup campus in Paris and backed by tech entrepreneur Xavier Niel who is behind the French low-cost Internet Provider. It is located in 55 boulevard Vincent Auriol in the 13th arrondissement.
"We're thrilled to be a founding partner and start the Facebook Startup Garage here," Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operation officer said. This is in line with what the COO says about Paris as a city of new ideas and a capital for food, culture, and most importantly, a thriving tech scene. Facebook will work with ten to fifteen startups to support in the development of their businesses, on a six-monthly cycle. This is the very first time Facebook invested in a physical space for startups.
Station F, a transformed listed landmark, will host 3,000 desks for up to 1,000 startups across a space worth 34,000m2. The Facebook chief operating officer said that Facebook will have 80 desks and a working space for up to 15 independent startups found near the entrance of the building.
The Startup Garage from Facebook will help data-driven startups in France. These include Chekk, which allows personal management of digital identity; Mapstr, a service that will let you keep track of places on a map; The Fabulous, a science-based health app; Karos, which helps with carpooling; and Onecub a digital dashboard creator. Facebook won't take equity in the startups and intellectual properly will belong to the individual companies. This means that the use of Facebook services is not obligatory.
The whole Station F campus will bank in from Facebook's mentorship which will include, marketing, technical development, UX/UI, and a lot more. Station F will also house a 360-person auditorium, a post office, a pop-up shop, a four-kitchen restaurant and a public bar.
