I’m at the TechCrunch40 conference today (where we coincidentally launched the SmartHippo beta) and caught the tail end of a presentation by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg announced a $10 million dollar fund, founded by Facebook’s investors, earmarked for companies building Facebook applications.

What’s interesting and unique is that these will not be traditional debt or equity deals, but actual grants that don’t need to be paid back. Accel Partners and Founders Fund, the investors behind the fund, will get a right of first refusal on any future financing deals — a more than reasonable price to pay.

Facebook has already shown a commitment to the developer community by launching the Facebook platform; now they’re providing developers not only the tools but also the funding to build their applications.

Deal size will range from $25,000 to $250,000 and the selection criteria is based on how “innovative and disruptive” the applications are.