Klaba and his brother Miroslaw will take a 75% stake in the new entity Synfonium, which will control Qwant and the cloud platform SHADOW. The French financial institution CDC will own the remaining 25% of shares in Synfonium.
The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. Still, the acquisition will be complete after analyzing the recent changes in the financial conditions of the Microsoft partnership with Qwant.
Once hailed as the “French Google” by President Emmanuel Macron, Qwant has struggled to gain market share against Alphabet’s dominant Google search engine. Despite the government’s support and adoption as the state administration’s default search engine, Qwant has failed to make significant headway commercially.
User privacy
The search engine relies on the tech behind Microsoft’s web search engine Bing. It formed a partnership with the tech giant in 2019.
CDC is presented as a “cornerstone shareholder” in the new entity. The acquisition is a significant development for Qwant. The search engine came into being in 2011 with user privacy as one of its main selling points.
With Synfonium’s takeover, Qwant’s fortunes could be set to turn around. The acquisition also represents a significant boost for Octave Klaba’s cloud computing services company, OVHcloud, which has been expanding aggressively recently.
A good deal
While we are not privy to all the financial details, it is safe to assume that the CDC’s involvement was crucial in making the acquisition possible. The public lender’s backing could help Synfonium and Qwant weather any storms that may arise in the highly competitive search engine market.
The move comes as data privacy is becoming increasingly important to consumers. With Qwant’s commitment to privacy and Synfonium’s cloud computing services, the acquisition could be a game-changer for both companies.
The cloud platform SHADOW could also help Synfonium gain an edge in the highly competitive cloud computing market. Overall, the deal represents a significant development for Qwant and OVHcloud and could have far-reaching consequences for the French tech industry.
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