Social networking major Facebook has invested $40,000 in an Indian start-up that aggregates home services. Facebook has deployed its investments in FIXU through its arm FbStart, which helps developers grow their start-ups by giving them access to tools and services and global events.

The investments will be in the form of credits that are translated into various opportunities, which include interactions with Facebook and global exposure.

Promoted by Vamshi Krishna and Nikhil, FIXU has technology that on-boards home service vendors such as plumbers and electricians. “We have roped in 170 vendors so far and currently serve Hyderabad city. We can track the entire process using automated tools,” Vamshi Krishna told BusinessLine.

Expansion

Elated over Facebook’s recognition, FIXU is looking at expansion to Bengaluru and Mumbai towards the end of 2017. “We have raised no funds so far. We are looking at raising $2,50,000 in the angel round in the middle of 2017 to fund our expansion,” Vamshi Krishna says.

Facebook is going to give them free access to Dropbox services worth $5,000 and tool kits and other services worth about the same amount for a period of 6-12 months. Besides, the team will have interactions with experts at Facebook headquarters in the US.

A mass communications graduate, Vamshi Krishna met his co-founder Nikhil, who is a JNTU graduate, at a start-up event in the city and built the product. The six-month-old start-up is currently doing an average of 25 orders a day, with an average revenue of Rs 500 per order.

There is already a crowd of start-ups out there offering similar services. “We are very fast and economical,” he claims, when asked how their service was different from others.

Besides the two founders, the start-up has two other employees as it has outsourced software development and marketing to third-party services.

Under the programme, FIXU would also receive mentoring from the Menlo Park-headquartered tech giant’s engineering teams.

The FbStart’s programme provides free access to more than 25 services including open source tools such as React Native, FB Login and Account Kit and App Analytics.

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