The founder of French cloud provider OVH Groupe SAS is seeking to buy the Qwant SAS search engine, in a bid to revive the quest for a European rival to Google and Bing that “respects privacy.”
(Bloomberg) — The founder of French cloud provider OVH Groupe SAS is seeking to buy the Qwant SAS search engine, in a bid to revive the quest for a European rival to Google and Bing that “respects privacy.”
Octave Klaba and his family created a venture called Synfonium, together with Qwant shareholder Caisse des Depots, and are holding exclusive talks to buy Qwant, the new group said in a statement. Caisse des Depots will hold a 25% stake in the company, according to the statement.
Set up in 2011 in France as a European alternative to Alphabet Inc.’s Google with a focus on protecting user’s data, Qwant has struggled to gain market share despite public funds and support, including from state-owned investor Caisse des Depots. It is used in just 0.6% of French searches compared with 92% for Google, according to data on Webrank in March.
Qwant’s other shareholders include its founders and Axel Springer SE.
Qwant has largely relied on a partnership with Microsoft Corp.’s Bing to provide search results to users while developing its own technology. Synfonium is analyzing recent changes in the financial terms of Qwant’s partnership with Microsoft, it said in the statement.
Klaba remains the majority shareholder in OVH, a listed cloud provider that offers a European alternative to Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft’s Azure. Synfonium will be distinct from OVH, and includes Shadow, a cloud platform used by businesses and gamers that Klaba acquired in 2021.
“We believe that Europe has a lot of great, innovative software solutions, which would truly benefit from a platform designed for their distribution and optimized interaction,” Klaba said in the statement. “Synfonium is meant to serve as a host and accelerator for those technologies, commencing with those of Shadow and Qwant.”
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