Business Partnership: Google Joins Hands with Orange to Invest In Start-Ups

Google has made an announcement to team up with French multinational telecommunications corporation, Orange earlier this week. The partnership has paved a way for Google to invest in start-ups based in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa through Orange’s corporate venture fund. With the deal, the two companies will have an opportunity to assess investment opportunities across the above-mentioned regions.

“The goal is to join forces in financing the most promising digital start-ups,” said Marc Rennard, CEO of Orange Digital Ventures (ODV). “We will then work together to qualify them, and when a common interest is there, we will join forces to invest in them,” he added.

The venture capital fund of the French telecommunications corporation is called as Orange Digital Ventures, which is a 350 million euro ($409 million) fund. Furthermore, it will jointly assess various investment opportunities across several industries in fields like network connectivity, cybersecurity, cloud, artificial intelligence and financial technology.

In addition, Google and Orange have been already working together for more than a decade now, in other aspects of their business, both the companies are focusing on the growth and creation of development solutions in Africa as a part of their cheap handsets manufacturing project.

According to Google, Orange’s system is steady with Google’s Know-how and the company has the potential to speed up the development of start-ups. Also, the partnership will boost the collective contribution to innovation in various regions.