German software giant SAP is investing 2 billion euros in French tech startups

As part of its push to accelerate its digital strategy and support innovation, German software giant and Europe’s biggest software company SAP  said it will invest two billion in French tech startups over the next five years, the company announced on Monday. The announcement by SAP comes amidst the news that Facebook and Google will be investment in France after their meetings with French resident, Emmanuel Macron. France is increasingly emerging as a leading hub for tech innovation, boosted by President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to promote the nation as open for business. France has the second highest startup representation in the recently concluded CES 2018 in Las Vegas than any other country apart from the United States.

“There is a real sense of economic momentum in France,” said SAP chief executive Bill McDermott after Macron hosted talks with some 140 business leaders at the Versailles chateau near Paris. SAP plans to focus its efforts on emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain. “We see immense potential in the entrepreneurial spirit of France to disrupt business models, create modern jobs and unleash exciting new opportunities that help the world run better,” SAP’s Chief Executive Bill McDermott said after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.  SAP also plans to open an incubator in France, its second in Europe after Berlin. The incubator would nurture over 50 start-ups and give them access to SAP’s software and cloud computing operations.

In addition to investing in French tech startups, SAP also made another announcement on Monday that it’s buying a French startup called Recast.AI. Recast.AI will be part of SAP’s efforts to add voice recognition to its products. Founded in September 2015, Recast.AI is the leading artificial intelligence bot platform. With more than 30,000 developers building more than 50,000 bots, Recast.AI offers a world class technology, an end-to-end bot platform as well as off-the-shelf customer support bots to lead the revolution of customer relations around the world.

Established in 1972 by Hans-Werner Hector and Hasso Plattner, SAP develops enterprise application software for companies and industries across diverse sectors. Its SAP R3 was popular back in the 90s.  SAP R/3 is the former name of its enterprise resource planning software . SAP offers solutions covering various lines of businesses, including asset management, commerce, finance, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, sales, services, sourcing and procurement, supply chain, and sustainability as well as research and development, and engineering. It provides enterprise application software to various industries, including consumer, discrete manufacturing, public services, energy and natural resources, financial services, and many other services.

In addition, the company offers SAP HANA, a platform that combines database, data processing, and application platform capabilities as well as simplifies application development and processing across big data sources and structures; and SAP HANA Cloud Platform which enables ease and flexibility in building, extending, and integrating business applications available to its partners, customers, and third-party developers. It also provides SAP Business Suite and SAP Business Warehouse as well as custom SAP HANA applications in the company’s cloud data centers.