Orange Silicon Valley, the Bay Area division of French telecommunications operator, is going to invest in bitcoin startups in the near future.
The Silicon Valley division of the French telecommunications company Orange plans to invest in bitcoin startups in the next months.
“There’s something intriguing in this technology, so we want to be there as early as possible,” Georges Nahon, CEO of Orange Silicon Valley, told Bloomberg. “This could be a digital platform of the future.”
According to Nahon, the Orange Silicon Valley division is planning to invest in two bitcoin firms and is now negotiating with these startups. The division, which can make an investment of $20,000 per each firm, belongs to the world team that is able to invest $3.2 million per startup.
The telecommunications operator has recently established Orange Digital Ventures, the venture capital arm, to fund the development of new companies in the digital segment. It is targeted at investing in 500 startups all over the globe by 2020.
“Even though we have a large internal R&D organization, given the pace of innovation we need to compliment our own initiatives and projects with what the outside world is doing,” Nahon also said.
As of Q1 of 2015, the bitcoin venture capital investments achieved $233.95 million, Bloomberg reported.
Orange Silicon Valley is the Silicon Valley division of Orange, which is one of the major telecommunications company in the world. Orange serves about 236 million customers in 220 different countries. Besides, it is participating in a number of programs, including Orange Fab startup accelerator and Orange Institute and is also taking part in disruptive innovations that alter the way we communicate.
“Here’s where the spark of digital innovation is located and how the communication ecosystem is rapidly evolving,” Nahon wrote on the Orange Silicon Valley website. “We are in an era where incumbent companies are having to adjust to younger and more efficient competitors who are not only winning business hand-over-foot, but also seeing incredible valuations. Scale seems to matter more than profits.”
“This is why Orange Silicon Valley is in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’re here to work with companies to actively participate in these disruptive innovations.”
Nowadays, more and more world companies are getting involved in bitcoin funding. Like Orange, venture capital arms of other tech giants have invested in bitcoin startups over the last time. Moreover, the largest stock exchange operators in the US are taking steps to enter the industry. Thus, the New York Stock Exchange has put money in Coinbase, while Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. licensed its exchange technology to a cryptocurrency trading company.
Besides, several telecommunications companies decided to embrace the digital currency. Dish Network Corp. Incorporated bitcoin payments in 2014. Connectivity services provider Perseus Telecom claimed it would support cryptocurrency trading.
Polina is an undergraduate student at Belarusian State Economic University (BSEU) where she is studying at the faculty of International Business Communication for a degree specializing in Intercultural Communication. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, music and travelling.
