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Facebook Seedrs

Facebook and Seedrs host 'The Big App' event in London to find Europe's best mobile app developers

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

September 3, 2014 | 3 min read

Facebook has partnered with crowdsourcing platform Seedrs to launch an eleven week competition to acknowledge and reward Europe’s best apps and developers.

Facebook says it receives 26m mobile users daily

‘The Big App’ initiative will, over the next few months, whittle down Europe's finest developers to a mere 10 finalists who will each deliver a Dragon’s Den-like pitch at Facebook’s London headquarters on 17 November.

Competitors will be chosen based on their creativity and the success of their apps with a pot of £350,000, crowdsourced by Seedrs, to be shared among the winners.

Facebook officials will judge the entries using their expertise in mobile to reward those bringing the next generation of digital service to the market now.

Ninety per cent of the social network’s global audience access the site daily on mobile devices. As a result the site houses hundreds of thousands of apps.

Deborah Hale, business marketing director at Facebook EMEA, said: “We’re very excited to help power the search for Europe’s next young entrepreneurs. The Big App Fund is a great opportunity for entrants looking for the funding and mentorship they need to get off the ground.

“Fostering innovation on mobile is central to Facebook’s role in helping businesses of all sizes grow and be successful and so we’re really happy to lend the programme our full support. For the investors, the fund represents a very attractive opportunity as the competition is the ultimate filtering process.”

Paul Soanes, managing partner of Worth Capital, said: “After the extraordinary success of our first fund on Seedrs, Worth Capital is delighted to announce the launch of our next project - the Big App Fund - a European-wide business competition to search for the best new mobile app entrepreneur.

“Our search will be supported by our new partner Facebook, who will provide huge exposure to entrepreneurs across Europe. Based on the record breaking success of our first fund, Worth is raising a fund of £350k on Seedrs to invest in the winner and up to three runners up.”

Coinciding with the initiative, Facebook will also run a European online advertising campaign to drive app awareness and encourage further developers to try their hand in the competition.

On the mobile front, Facebook in July removed its messenger service from the social network, forcing users to download a separate app - much to their distaste.

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