Clément Combal stands out for treating founder selection almost like choosing a long-term partner, since Orange Ventures backs only 7–8 of the roughly 2,000 startups it sees each year and he weighs how well he'll work with a founder over the 5–7 years a deal usually lasts, telling founders directly to use a strong lawyer or banker and create competition among funds during negotiations. He also has a specific view that once the current AI wave settles down, a company's real value may come from the proprietary data its own operations generate, and he's shown real persistence chasing deals he wants, having pushed hard with his team to win the competitive Brut investment.
About their Fund
Orange Ventures operates as a separate legal entity from its telecom parent, Orange, which creates a clear boundary around confidentiality and conflicts of interest while still keeping Orange's business synergies available on a flexible, optional basis; it also invests in startups before those synergies are proven, a bet that led 90% of its 2021–2022 startup group to end up working with Orange Group, with two staff members whose job is specifically to help portfolio companies work with the larger company. In Africa and the Middle East, the fund draws on Orange's on-the-ground presence across roughly 17-18 countries—including its distribution networks, cell towers, and mobile money systems—to find startups that fit within Orange's role as a multi-service operator spanning mobile money, energy, and logistics, and it runs its investments differently by region and goal, with separate tracks for European software startups, Middle East/Africa growth-stage startups, and a dedicated €30 million fund for environmental and social impact startups.
















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