Orange’s Go Ignite Global Call seeking growth stage startups

Following the success of its inaugural global call for start-ups last year, Go Ignite, an alliance of four leading telcos, has launched its second global call at the Four Years From Now (4YFN) technology and start-up event at the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona.

Go Ignite comprises hub:raum, Orange Fab, Singtel Innov8 and Telefonica Open Future_, the open innovation arms of Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Singtel, and Telefonica.

Mr Bertrand Rojat, Start-up Ecosystem Director, Orange said: “Following the success of our first call for start-ups last year, both in terms of the response we had and our ability to work together seamlessly across our accelerator programmes, this years’ call will see us putting our collective support behind some key areas for our business units: consumer experience AI, Connected Homes, IoT security.”

The Go Ignite Second Global Call is seeking growth stage start-ups that have market-ready solutions in Consumer Experience Artificial Intelligence (AI), Connected Homes, or Internet-of-Things (IoT) Security. Consumer Experience AI refers to the use of new technology to provide personalised customer support or new forms of customer interaction. Connected Homes are solutions that use software or hardware to enhance smart living or connectivity, while IoT Security leverages new technologies to keep vehicles, industries, smart homes and smart cities safe.

The application window is open from 1 March 2017 to 30 April 2017 for up to five winners to be selected. The alliance members will provide the winners with mentoring expertise, contacts, office space, event support and access to a combined market of more than 1.2 billion customers across Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South East Asia and Australia.

The alliance members will provide them with a two-day training session with experts in telco innovation, technologies and investments practices, to help them refine their solutions and sharpen their strategies.

Through exclusive meetings, the winners will be given the opportunity to form business partnerships with the four telcos. They will also be introduced to the telcos’ key decision makers and’ venture capital teams where successful start-ups will receive funding to grow their business.

The inaugural Go Ignite global call last year was very positive for Contiamo, a German start-up. Its cloud-based data analytics proposal was selected as one of the five winners.

Another winner was Blueliv, a Spanish cyber security start-up set to work directly with several international clients of Orange Cyberdefense.