There are only a few days left for startups to apply to Orange Fab, a San Francisco-based accelerator powered by European telecommunications giant Orange.
What is it and why does it matter?
France Telecom-Orange is a leader in worldwide telecommunications with over 230 millions customers in the world, 172 millions mobile customers, and 17 000 employees with operations in 33 countries. Not a bad environment to be in for a startup willing to "change the way people connect and communicate" and have access to that kind of powerful distribution network.
Orange Silicon Valley, Orange's development center based in San Francisco, decided to harness its network of executives, connections and mentors to start a competitive program targeting early stage startups. For them, it's a way to stay at the edge of innovation and provide their customers with new cutting-edge technology. For startups, it's an invaluable opportunity to tap into a worldwide network of mobile consumers and perhaps, have their product used by millions.
The 3-months program starts May 6th, 2013 in San Francisco. The goal is to mentor 4 to 6 startups, and pair them up with Orange executives and Silicon Valley experts such as Jean-Marc Harion, CEO of Orange Belgium, Bram Cohen, Chief Scientist & Founder at BitTorrent, Nate Bolt, Design Research Manager at Facebook, Frederique Dame, Product Manager at Uber, among others.
Pascale Diaine, who runs the program, explained to me that after several years spent in Silicon Valley building relationships with tech heavyweights, they realized there was an opportunity to not only bring innovative solutions to Orange customers, but also help US-based startups reach the next level. She added, "we are thrilled to help and support local startups through our strong and trusted network of Silicon Valley experts we have built over the years. This is a great opportunity of generating and transferring innovation to everybody’s benefit".
Apart from the mentoring, the program consists of two weekly events, networking and workshops, two demo days (one in Paris in June, the second in Silicon Valley in July), conference calls with Orange executives, and up to $20 000 in funding, plus optional office hours at Orange Silicon Valley in downtown SF with access to Orange's engineers, product managers and business experts.
Who can apply?
Only 4 to 6 startups will be selected (applications close April 7th). The program is open to all but Orange being focused on mobile, a few criteria listed on the website favor "high bandwith disruption, wireless access, rich communication, mobile payments, cloud services (...)" among other things.
Startups should be at an early stage, meaning they haven't raised a Series A yet, but can apply even if they already have seed money or have been part of an other accelerator program. They need to have an existing product (launched or ready to) and a killer pitch.
If the description fits your startup, go and apply before the Sunday deadline here.
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