Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has added Braintree, Appmethod, and Get Satisfaction as partners on its FbStart program. That brings the total number to 17.

Facebook announced FbStart at f8 in April. It’s a program, which gives startups tools (for free) and services from Facebook itself and partner companies to help them get their apps to take off. The company opened the program to everyone in May.

Facebook’s Kevin Prior explains what the new partners bring to the table: “Braintree offers a payments platform to help apps accept payments from people, while Appmethod makes it easy to build native cross-platform apps with a single codebase. With Get Satisfaction, you can build an online customer engagement community, helping you connect directly with your customers.”

“Over the past month we’ve been reviewing applications for the program, selecting high quality mobile apps with the potential for continued growth that can immediately start taking advantage of the program and benefits,” he adds. “In just over a month’s time, we have already accepted more than 500 startups from 63 different countries. Over half of the accepted startups were from outside the United States.”

Facebook says apps that it has accepted will hear from the company soon about the new partners and offerings. The company also says it will have events for startup members to announce in the near future.

Free tools and services available to accepted startups are worth up to $40,000.

Image via Facebook