Orange Ventures is among the top ten corporate venture capital funds in Europe.

Orange, (EPA: ORA) the French telecom giant, has hived off Orange Ventures, its venture capital business, into a separate new entity and allocated it €350 million. It also decided to hand over the management of its Orange Digital Ventures initiative launched in 2015 to the new entity. (Capacity)

Orange Ventures

Orange Ventures is now in the top echelons of European venture financing. It is among the top ten corporate venture capital funds in Europe.

Its brief is to seek out investments in startups at all business stages, from stage to beyond. Armed with check sizes of €20 million each, the Orange Ventures team will look for founders in high-growth, high-tech areas that are also of strategic relevance to the Orange telecom group.

These sectors include Networks & IT, Digital Enterprise, Cybersecurity, and Fintech) and beyond (Consumer platforms, E -gaming, Edtech, Health etc).

The 20-member team, which will work out of offices in Paris and Dakar, will be headed up by Jérôme Berger, formerly CEO of Orange Ventures, who has taken on the role of president and managing partner.

Geographical strategy

The activities of the company bifurcate across three global geographies.

• Global Champions – France, UK, Rest of Europe, US and Israel; Sectors: Networks & IT, Digital enterprise, Cybersecurity, Fintech and Consumer; Stages: raising Series B and above and in some cases earlier stage startups already identified within Orange ecosystem
• Middle East & Africa Champions – Middle East, North Africa and Sub Saharan Africa; Sectors: various including but not limited to Networks & IT, Digital enterprise, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Consumer, Gaming, Edtech, E-commerce; Stages: Seed, Series A/B/C
• Middle East & Africa Seed – Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia; Sectors: various including but not limited to Networks & IT, Digital enterprise, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Consumer, Gaming, Edtech, E-commerce; Stages: Seed (under 1m€ raised in total equity funding)

Best of both worlds

Jérôme Berger, President and Managing Partner of Orange Ventures said in a statement: “Our wish is to constitute an organisation which combines the best of both worlds: Orange’s business expertise as well as the agility of decision-making and the quality of the financial monitoring of the best investment funds. We closely support each start-up post-investment in order to contribute to its development and facilitate its direct and structured access to the Orange ecosystem whenever it is relevant.”

Separately, Orange wants its venture arm to promote the development of “future technological champions who support the transition to an increasingly digital and responsible world,” and whose innovation capabilities would benefit the Group’s 256 million customers globally.

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