Orange, DT Team on Startups Light Readin

Orange, DT Team on Startups


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6/12/2014
PARIS -- Today, within the framework of “Futur en Seine”, an international digital event that takes place in Paris, Orange is organising an international half-day demonstration between start-ups from its Orange Fab initiative in France, South-East Asia, the United-States and Poland, and members of the ecosystem (investors, entrepreneurs, etc).

On this occasion, Orange announces its intention to work more closely with Deutsche Telekom's respective start-up accelerator programmes. In addition, Orange announces the extension of its Orange Fab programme to Israel and the Ivory Coast in October, in order to boost digital innovators growth and contribute to job creation. Orange is also cooperating with AppCampus, Microsoft and Aalto University’s mobile app development accelerator, which will allow its customers to benefit from new and exciting applications.

The selected start-ups from Orange Fab and hub:raum will be connected by the respective innovation teams and business units of both operators. The objective is to leverage both start-up programmes’ portfolio in order to enrich the innovative products and services that the operators offer to their customers of their respective footprints in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Both operators may also help these young companies scale up by accessing their markets, which represents a potential customer base of approximately 500 million people. The start-ups may additionally have access to the investment vehicles which have been set by Orange and Deutsche Telekom to contribute to the development of the digital ecosystem with a focus on start-ups working in the fields of IoT, network optimisation/access technology, mobile payment, cybersecurity and big data.

This collaboration complements the operators’ own start-up accelerator programmes.

Orange Fab provides the selected start-ups with three months of support to develop their product and business. They receive invaluable mentoring from Orange innovators, experts and entrepreneurs. In some countries, eligible start-ups also received grants in the form of convertible bonds. Orange Fab was rolled out first in Silicon Valley in March 2013, and followed by France, Southeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) and Poland. Furthermore, the programme will be launched in Israel and in the Ivory Coast in October, with calls for applications starting in September. 37 start-ups have already benefited from this programme.

Mari-Noëlle Jégo-Laveissière, Senior Executive Vice President Orange’s Innovation, Marketing and Technologies, said: “We believe that large companies have a major role to play, to support start-ups at a crucial stage of their development and help them become champions. This cooperation is key to fostering the innovative ecosystem, as well as to contribute to job creation”. Deutsche Telekom shares the same vision and commitment as Orange and we are proud to join forces to do more together for digital start-ups”.

hub:raum connects the digital startup ecosystem with Deutsche Telekom, linking tech entrepreneurs and high growth startup companies with expert networking, capital and business opportunities of Deutsche Telekom. Startups in the hub:raum programme enjoy free co-working spaces, mentoring and expert sessions and optional funding of up to €300k (for typically 10 to 15% equity in exchange). More than 50 start-ups participated so far in hub:raum programmes in Berlin (Western Europe), Kracow (Central and Eastern Europe) and Tel Aviv.

Orange (NYSE: FTE)

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