venture-capitalIt may be the most simple question to answer. “No, Facebook would have not been this big without venture capital.” But is it the product that matters in the end? Or is VC a must for a billion dollar company these days?
How far could Facebook have spread without VC and would we have ever have known the Facebook as we know it today, if Zuckerberg had not sought venture capital?
Social networks, and more generally community-content driven websites and applications (including the likes of Uber), are a rather special kind of business, because there are network effects at play.
The vast majority of them will need or want to capitalize on huge growth rates, and invest massively in their infrastructure and staff to make that happen.
YouTube, as an example, was burning through (and indeed, losing) several millions per month at the time Google bought them.
So, no, Facebook would probably not have been this big – or at least not this big this fast – without venture capital.
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