Montreal, September 28th, 2020 – Launched in 2015, OVHcloud’s Start-up Program has already supported more than 1,800 young companies around the world, including 250 in North America, through an investment of more than €6 million in infrastructure credits and development support. To mark the start of the new fiscal year, OVHcloud is reaffirming its commitment to supporting young companies that put cloud infrastructure at the heart of their business model.
“We believe that start-ups are a bridge to the future. Start-ups embody innovation and, because digital technology is increasingly pervasive in society, will be the majority source of jobs. The mission of OVHcloud’s Start-up program is to support this innovation and contribute to economic dynamism by helping young and daring companies to develop in an ecosystem of trust”, explains Michel Paulin, CEO of OVHcloud.
Dedicated support for start-ups and scaleups
In order to support start-ups and scaleups putting the cloud at the heart of their business model in their development, OVHcloud has designed a 12-month program adapted and proportionate to the needs of each. The program includes:
- A grant of up to $15,000 CAD to be used on OVHcloud products for start-ups and up to $150,000 CAD for scaleups.
- Personalized support from 6 hours for start-ups and up to 20 hours for scaleups.
- A dedicated community space to exploit the potential of the OVHcloud ecosystem.
- Access to the Open Trusted Cloud program; from the 1st day for scaleups and at the end of the 12-month program for start-ups.
- Exposure through joint communications with OVHcloud, booths at international trade shows, speaking opportunities during OVHcloud events, workshops and conferences dedicated to start-ups (online and offline) as well as joint use cases published on the OVHcloud website.
- Start-ups with the fastest developments can of course upgrade to the level of support dedicated to scaleups during the program.
“Today, nearly 90% of start-ups disappear in less than 3 years. Meeting a need and having a strong growth potential are not enough to ensure their sustainability; it is necessary to have reached a certain level of maturity, to have a solid infrastructure and to know how to surround oneself with trusted partners in order to develop fully. Our objective is to support each start-up at its own pace and according to its needs, so that as many of them as possible can take off and why not become the next unicorn,” says Malgorzata Ratajska-Grandin, Director of OVHcloud’s Start-up Program, who hopes to be able to support up to 500 start-ups over the next 12 months. To this end, the Start-up Program teams are expanding on a global scale: they have recently been strengthened internationally with experts dedicated to supporting start-ups and will soon be present in Canada and the United States.
A first springboard to success
Behind this program, the objective is obviously to see the start-up or scaleup develop according to the choices of its own teams. This is why the OVHcloud Start-up Program follows the same rules as the rest of the company and applies its conception of a SMART cloud (Simple to use, Multi-local, Accessible, Reversible and Transparent). OVHcloud’s open technology is made available to companies participating in the program to accelerate their business and growth with no strings attached.
OVHcloud does not take a share of the start-up’s capital, nor does it require the start-up to use its infrastructure at the end of the 12 months of the support program. OVHcloud acts first and foremost as a facilitator, putting start-ups in contact with what they need most (IP and financing experts, incubators, venture capital firms, etc.) and providing the infrastructure on which their business model is based. This non-binding model guarantees each start-up the reversibility, interoperability and control of its data.
At the end of the program, the organizations participating in the program will be able to continue using OVHcloud infrastructures or not, but also to integrate the Open Trusted Cloud, its trusted ecosystem of SaaS and PaaS services.
To find out more about the OVHcloud Start-up Program and join it: startup.ovhcloud.com/en/
About OVHcloud
With a strong presence in Canada since 2011, OVHcloud is a global and the leading European cloud provider operating 400,000 servers in its own 30 data centres in 4 continents. For 20 years, the Group has been leveraging an integrated model that provides full control of our value chain, from designing our servers to managing our data centres to orchestrating our fiber-optic network. This unique approach enables OVHcloud to cover, independently, the full spectrum of use cases for our 1.5 million customers in more than 130 countries. OVHcloud now offers customers latest-generation solutions that combine high performance, predictable pricing and full data sovereignty to support their unfettered growth.
