Three Finalists Poised to Win French Championship of Create@Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud continues to establish cloud capabilities in France to empower start-ups and small enterprises

Paris, France, 7 June 2017 – Pzartech, Short Edition and Edelway have been shortlisted to compete for the Create@Alibaba Cloud French championship, following an intensive pitch at Sentier Valley in Paris. The final competition of the French Division will be held next week at VivaTech, one of the world's largest technology and innovation events at which Alibaba Cloud will make its debut. The winner will be awarded the equivalent of US$50,000, as well as a place to participate in the global final, to be held in Shanghai in October.

Create@Alibaba Cloud is a global start-up program initiated by Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group. The program aims to empower start-ups across the globe with Alibaba's comprehensive support network and innovative suite of cloud computing infrastructure services. This year, the competition has been expanded to 13 markets as Alibaba Cloud continues to grow its global coverage and increases its support for local small enterprises.

Yeming Wang, Deputy General Manager of Alibaba Cloud Global said: "Create@Alibaba Cloud celebrates the innovation of start-ups while providing these exciting drivers of change with access to Alibaba Cloud's expertise, working spaces, and incubation, as well as Alibaba Group's global market resources and network to help them grow. We are delighted about meeting these entrepreneurs in France and will continue to establish our cloud capabilities in the country and across Europe to enable start-ups and small enterprises to make use of our comprehensive networking solutions and big-data intelligence to accelerate their business growth."

The finalists impressed the judges with their innovative business concepts showcasing huge commercial potential and prospects for global expansion. The judges also acknowledged the importance of technological support to allow them to turn these ideas into reality.

Pzartech develops 3D recognition technology that enables users of heavy equipment to quickly identify mechanical parts using 3D image processing and deep learning. "The distributed 3D printing services we provide to our clients rely on strong computing capabilities. Taking part in the competition offers us the potential to access the Chinese market and provide our cloud-enabled 3D printing services to clients there by leveraging Alibaba Cloud's network," said Jeremie Brabet-Adonajlo, Founder and CEO of Pzartech.

Short Edition, another finalist, is a community publisher of short literature. It also designed the Short Story Dispenser, a machine connected to its platform which prints short stories for readers to overcome little moments of boredom in their daily life. The judges recognized the potential of the business, particularly in the use of data and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to generate personalized stories. Alibaba Cloud solutions can help the start-up run stories in different languages and replicate their success all over the world.

Fabien Coeur-Uni, founder of Eelway, a start-up that provides mobile luggage storage and transfer services that give travelers a luggage-free day when they arrive in or depart from Paris, was excited about the pitch and said he was ready to take the discussion further with the experienced professionals in the judging panel on how to grow the business with cloud support.

Jonathan Lascar, Director of Investment, BPI France and a member of the judging panel, said: "In France, there is a well-structured approach to nurturing start-up companies. BPI France, with its €6.5 billion government-backed investment fund to encourage technology innovation, is part of this larger plan. In addition, with our financing activities, we need the participation of private enterprises like Alibaba Cloud in introducing technological breakthroughs to help start-up companies in our country overcome obstacles at the early stage of development and assist them in their ambitions for global expansion."

France is the third most significant European tech hub by number of start-ups and levels of investment. In 2016, the country attracted record levels of deals and capital. With the establishment of Station F in Paris, an ambitious 34,000-square-meter space that houses 1,000 start-ups, France is expected to become one of the world's largest incubators of tech firms.

As part of the program, participants of Create@Alibaba Cloud will receive funding for investments into IT infrastructure, professional technology training, customized technology solutions designed by Alibaba Cloud architects, and one-on-one post-sales support, to help them scale their businesses rapidly and smoothly. In addition, Alibaba Group will support the start-ups throughout the course of their development. Through Alibaba's ecosystem, the start-ups will gain better access to overseas markets and benefit from joining Alibaba Cloud's marketing campaigns, both online and offline.

For more information about this year's Create@Alibaba Cloud program, please visit https://cacsc.aliyun.com.

About Alibaba Cloud

Established in September 2009, Alibaba Cloud , Alibaba Group's cloud computing arm, develops highly scalable platforms for cloud computing and data management. It provides a comprehensive suite of cloud computing services to support participants of Alibaba Group's online and mobile commerce ecosystem, including sellers, and other third-party customers and businesses. Alibaba Cloud is a business within Alibaba Group.