Can you introduce Azursafe, its industry, mission and values?

The blockchain sector has been growing steadily for several years, bringing both new opportunities and complex challenges, including stricter regulations in Europe and beyond. In this evolving landscape, AzurSafe was founded with a clear mission to support blockchain companies, financial institutions, fraud victims, analytics partners, security researchers, and law enforcement agencies in one shared goal: Making Blockchain Safer.

We develop and offer transaction analysis and monitoring solutions, to identify malicious activity using intelligent and innovative technologies.

Quickly gaining the support of the French government and several key partners, AzurSafe has established itself as a trusted player in the sector, earning recognition from private and public financial institutions for its innovative solutions which bring a real added value both in operational and regulatory terms.

What were specific challenges you faced before joining OVHcloud’s Blockchain Accelerator?

Deploying such complex and advanced solutions requires significant logistics in all areas, whether technical or business. Like any ambitious start-up, AzurSafe needs to respond to these challenges as part of its development.

On the technical side, we have to manage and orchestrate dozens of services, from massive data flows to the various characteristics that define each blockchain, then process and analyze all of this while offering a near-instantaneous service, because on the blockchain, every second counts when it comes to preventing fraud.

Why did you decide to explore cloud solutions to overcome these obstacles?

As our solution progressed, we realized that we needed to manage more and more features, then orient the infrastructure so it’s modular as we went along, while maintaining high availability, security standards, and data management without blowing our budget, inevitably linked to our business challenges.

After using other cloud services, we immediately understood the relevance of OVHcloud’s offering. What’s more, we offer a sovereign solution to those who want it (SecNumCloud), so the choice was easy.

How did OVHcloud and the Startup Program help you overcome these challenges?

After two years of intense R&D, we were reassured after benchmarking against the current state of the art and quickly realized that our technology had the same technical capabilities, and even better ones. But that wasn’t all it took to deploy a solution of this kind on the market.

We needed to dig deeper and better understand our environment and the distribution of our solutions and technologies in an ecosystem that was already formed with established players requiring equally established solutions. Participating in inspiring industry exchanges and receiving support throughout our deployment greatly contributed to our success.

Which OVHcloud services or features do you use, and how do they stand out from other solutions?

For our part, we use almost all (or nearly all) Public Cloud services, which stand out from other solutions thanks to their simplicity, performance, and competitive pricing.

How has OVHcloud’s support helped you evolve your infrastructure to meet the demands of your business?

Their support has been very useful in various cases, thanks to the organization of workshops, mentoring, and infrastructure support.

What tangible results have you achieved since collaborating with OVHcloud? How have these results helped to accelerate your growth or improve your product/service offering?

Not to mention the ease of use, which saves time, the costs are at least half those of well-known American providers.

How have these results helped to accelerate your growth or improve your product/service offering?

The program has enabled us to better understand our environment and the industry in which we operate, by combining technical and business support.

Future Vision: What are your ambitions for the future of your startup, and how do you see it evolving within the cloud ecosystem?

Current technologies, as well as the various legal and illegal activities involving blockchain, are still in their infancy. It is easy to predict that they will evolve in the coming years, creating new opportunities but also complex challenges. We do not operate directly on the blockchain, but we must monitor it and evolve with it. Our infrastructure and services must be resilient, and the cloud remains the best alternative for our customers who do not want on-premise software.

What future challenges do you foresee, and how do you see the cloud playing a role in solving them?

The volume of data and the number of protocols and services built on decentralized technologies continue to grow rapidly. Yet, they still rely on essential solutions such as RPC nodes, interface hosting, and advanced platforms like ours to operate safely.

The risks are real and can affect everyone. Security is no longer an option in today’s digital age, and increasingly secure solutions will be necessary. The cloud is an excellent candidate for the coming years, provided it is used correctly.

What advice would you give to other growth-stage startups considering the cloud or joining a support program?

Go for it, you have so much to gain!

Conclusions

AzurSafe has recently reached a new milestone, surpassing $90 billion in transaction value monitored across more than 30 blockchains, highlighting emerging fraud trends and providing real-time insights using advanced AI and ML technologies that demonstrate unrivalled accuracy.

The precision of our fraud detection tools has been approved, audited, battle-tested and endorsed by experts in the financial and investigative industries. But this is only the beginning, and we are preparing huge projects that will completely redefine the landscape on an international scale.

We are surpassing ourselves at every stage to create a more secure blockchain and we would like to thank OVHcloud, our webhost for several years, for this great opportunity and for joining us in revolutionising this industry. We invite anyone who wants to contribute to join us as well.

If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

Can you introduce Cryptomate, its industry, mission and values?

CryptoMate was founded by a team with deep experience in Fintech, Banking, Crypto, and Academia. We are capitalizing on a massive shift we identified: just as traditional fintech evolved from single services to Super Apps and finally to Embedded Finance, blockchain is now in its 3rd Wave.

This 3rd Wave moves past simple exchanges and TradFi apps to Embedded Stablecoins and AI Agents, allowing any company to offer sophisticated, global financial services.

Our mission is driven by a core belief: “no single bank fits everyone’s hand.” We are building the toolkit for a “constellation of micro-fintechs” across emerging markets. We believe financial inclusion must be profitable for local entrepreneurs to scale from the bottom up, rather than a top-down, high-cost model.

This vision is not theoretical; it’s a proven business model. We are already serving clients in 12+ countries. Our focus on providing real tools for local entrepreneurs has fueled a 10x increase in the last year, putting us on track to cross $100 Million in annualized transaction volume.

We have the team, we have the traction, and we are leading this new, decentralized financial revolution.

Guido De Luca (CTO) and Alan Boryszanski (CEO), co-founders of Cryptomate.

What were specific challenges you faced before joining OVHcloud’s Blockchain Accelerator?

Before the accelerator, our challenges were a direct result of our rapid 10x growth.

Technical: Our hybrid infrastructure (using one hyperscaler and one challenger) was becoming a bottleneck. We were running high-frequency financial processing, real-time AI agents, and deposit detection engines through multiple blockchain networks on systems that were difficult to scale. We faced performance issues and security complexities trying to manage both bare metal and managed cloud services at $100M in transaction volume.

Operational: We needed to deploy in new regions (Asia, Africa) for our clients, but our current setup made global, low-latency deployment slow and complex.

Financial: Our other provider’s costs were becoming unpredictable and a major budget drain. We needed a solution that offered the power of bare metal for our core processing without the punishing, variable costs of hyperscalers.

How did OVHcloud and the Startup Program help you overcome these challenges?

OVHcloud and its Startup Program were the direct solution to our scalability, cost, and performance crises.

Bare Metal servers are our key differentiator. They give us the raw, dedicated processing power needed for our financial engine and AI agents, something that was prohibitively expensive on our other hyperscaler provider. We get 100% of the CPU/RAM, which is critical for security and low-latency in our MPC wallet operations.

Predictable pricing was the biggest financial win. We’ve eliminated the unpredictable, variable costs of hyperscalers. Now our infrastructure budget is a fixed, manageable operational expense, allowing us to scale without fear.

We use vRack to build a secure, private global network connecting our nodes in Europe and North America, with a clear path to Asia. This solved our global deployment challenge.

The Startup Program’s support and credits were vital, giving us the financial breathing room to migrate and optimize our complex architecture without disrupting our 10x growth.

What tangible results have you achieved since collaborating with OVHcloud? How have these results helped to accelerate your growth or improve your product/service offering?

The results have been transformative. Since migrating to OVHcloud, we’ve reduced our monthly infrastructure costs by over 30%, moving from unpredictable hyperscaler bills to a fixed, manageable budget.

Crucially, by leveraging dedicated bare metal servers, we’ve increased our transaction processing speed by 50%. This isn’t just a metric; it’s a critical enabler. It allows us to securely handle our $100M annualized transaction volume and run our complex AI agents with the low latency our clients demand.

This collaboration directly accelerated our 10x growth. We now have a stable, high-performance global foundation, giving us the confidence to onboard larger clients and expand into new regions without fearing performance bottlenecks or budget overruns.

What are your ambitions for the future of your startup, and how do you see it evolving within the cloud ecosystem?

Our ambition is to become the global operating system for our “constellation of micro-fintechs,” scaling from $100M to billions in transaction volume.

Our future challenges are threefold: massive global scale, the heavy compute power required for our AI agents, and navigating complex data sovereignty laws as we enter new markets in Africa and Asia.

OVHcloud is our partner for sustainable success. Its powerful bare metal servers provide the cost-efficient engine for our AI and core transactions. Crucially, its global network and focus on data sovereignty give us a secure, compliant, and predictable foundation to scale globally, ensuring our future growth is both fast and financially stable.

What advice would you give to other growth-stage startups considering the cloud or joining a support program?

First, challenge your cloud stack. Don’t just default to the big hyperscalers because it’s easy. As you scale, their variable costs can kill your margins. For core, high-performance workloads—like our financial engine—dedicated bare metal servers provided us with 50% more speed at 30% less cost. Control your infrastructure economics before they control you.

Second, use startup programs for their expertise, not just their credits. The credits from the OVHcloud Startup Program were great, but it was their expert support in migrating our complex, high-volume architecture that was invaluable. Find a partner who invests in your success and understands your specific technical needs.

Conclusions

OVHcloud was the key to solving our scaling crisis. We cut our infrastructure costs by 30% and boosted transaction performance by 50% by migrating from unpredictable hyperscalers to their powerful bare metal servers. This partnership gave us the stable, cost-predictable foundation necessary to handle $100M in transaction volume and power our global AI.

Don’t let infrastructure costs limit your growth. We strongly urge other startups to join the OVHcloud Startup Program. Contact their team to build your own foundation for sustainable success.

If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

This accelerator has been a game-changer for the 16 startups that participated. The program’s focus on technical guidance, business strategy, and mentoring has yielded impressive results, with participants such as CryptoMate and AzurSafe achieving significant milestones and successes.

“OVHcloud was the direct solution to our scalability, cost, and performance crises. Bare Metal servers are our key differentiator, giving us the raw, dedicated processing power needed for our financial engine and AI agents,” said Alan Boryszanski, co-Founder of CryptoMate. “The Startup Program’s support and credits were vital, giving us the financial breathing room to migrate and optimize our complex architecture without disrupting our 10x growth.”

Similarly, AzurSafe has surpassed $90 billion in transaction value monitored across more than 30 blockchains, highlighting emerging fraud trends and providing real-time insights using advanced AI and ML technologies. “The precision of our fraud detection tools has been approved, audited, battle-tested, and endorsed by experts in the financial and investigative industries,” said Sam Dabiri, Founder and CEO of AzurSafe. “We are preparing huge projects that will completely redefine the landscape on an international scale.”

Kavodax, another participant, has launched in 30 countries and is in discussions with VCs involved with the Accelerator.

We would like to extend our gratitude to our partners who made this program possible, including Alchemy, Degen House, Crypto Mondays London, Super Team Solana, Fintech District, and Dysnix as well as the delivery partners Link Innovations and Empact Ventures. Their expertise and support have been invaluable to the success of our participants.

In fact, Dysnix has already been able to deliver tangible value to Mira Network, another participant. Dysnix is providing DevOps services to Mira Network to aid their migration from another hyperscaler in a short timeframe, following an infrastructure audit. The outcome of this collaboration has been better infrastructure scalability and significant cost optimisation.

“The OVHcloud Startup Program Fast Forward Blockchain and Web3 accelerator has been a resounding success, and we are proud to have played a role in the growth and development of these innovative startups,” said Philip Marais, Global Startup Program Director at OVHcloud. “Our program is designed to provide founders with the acceleration they need through unique go-to-market support to allow them to thrive in the blockchain and Web3 ecosystem, and we are thrilled to see the impact it has had on our participants.”

“The blockchain and Web3 ecosystem is rapidly evolving, and it’s essential for startups to have the right support and resources to succeed,” said Omar Abi Issa, Global Sales Director for Blockchain, Web3 and AI at OVHcloud. “Our program is committed to providing the necessary tools and expertise to help startups overcome the complex challenges of this landscape and achieve their full potential.”

As we look to the future, we are excited to continue supporting the growth and development of blockchain and Web3 startups through our OVHcloud Startup Program. With our expertise, resources, and network of partners, we are confident that we can help these innovative companies achieve their full potential and make a lasting impact on the industry.

Look out for future blog articles covering interviews with our Blockchain and Web3 Accelerator participants or find out more about the Startup Program below.

If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

For startups ready to scale smarter, OVHcloud offers a compelling alternative: high-performance, cost-effective, and sovereignty-first infrastructure. Here’s why more and more growing startups are making the switch.

1. Predictable, Transparent Pricing

OVHcloud’s flat-rate pricing model eliminates hidden fees and unpredictable billing. Bandwidth is included. Egress costs? Zero. This gives startups the ability to budget confidently—even as infrastructure scales rapidly.

2. Cost-Efficient Scaling

Startups that migrate to OVHcloud often report up to 60% cost savings compared to hyperscalers. Whether you’re scaling your backend, AI workloads, or customer-facing applications, OVHcloud lets you do more with less.

3. Performance Without Compromise

From Bare Metal servers and high-memory VMs to GPU and storage-optimized instances, OVHcloud infrastructure is engineered for performance. Ideal for AI, SaaS, analytics, and other compute-intensive use cases.

4. Full Data Sovereignty in the EU

OVHcloud is headquartered in Europe and operates under the strictest data protection laws (like GDPR in the EU or Law 25 in Quebec, Canada). Unlike other providers, your data stays within jurisdictions that respect privacy and sovereignty—no exposure to foreign surveillance laws.

5. Open Standards and No Vendor Lock-In

Freedom matters—especially when you’re building for scale. OVHcloud supports open technologies like Kubernetes, Terraform, and OpenStack, giving your team full flexibility and avoiding lock-in to proprietary tools or services.

6. Infrastructure That Grows With You

Whether you’re launching in new markets or onboarding thousands of new users, OVHcloud enables seamless horizontal and vertical scaling. With availability across multiple regions, your growth won’t hit a wall.

7. Faster Time-to-Market Through Cloud Migration Support

OVHcloud offers cloud migration guidance and tools, including compatibility with major platforms and migration kits. This helps your team move faster, avoid downtime, and focus on innovation—not infrastructure headaches.

8. Dev-Friendly Ecosystem

With support for containerization, automation, and CI/CD pipelines, OVHcloud makes life easier for DevOps teams. You can provision infrastructure programmatically and scale efficiently—just like you would with AWS or GCP.

9. Sustainability Built In

Efficiency is built into OVHcloud’s DNA. By designing and operating its own energy-efficient data centers, OVHcloud helps startups meet their sustainability goals without compromising on performance or cost.

10. A Cloud Partner—Not Just a Provider

Startups need more than compute power—they need guidance, flexibility, and a partner that understands their journey. OVHcloud offers tailored support, technical documentation, and real human engagement to help you succeed at every stage of growth.

OVHcloud: Built to Scale With Startups

If your startup is growing fast and needs infrastructure that can keep up—without breaking the budget or sacrificing control—OVHcloud offers a cloud built around your values: scalability, transparency, freedom, and performance.

Migrate with confidence. Scale with control. Grow with OVHcloud.

If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

Meet the 16 Selected Startups

The 16 startups selected for the Blockchain & Web3 Accelerator are:

1. ARZE, an AI-powered ERP suite composed of three integrated tools: payroll, invoicing, and back-office business intelligence.
2. Kavodax Inc, a blockchain-powered B2B cross-border payment platform.
3. Kross Blockchain, Africa’s first smart contract layer 1 chain and Nigeria’s first blockchain.
4. Mira Network AG, a Swiss-based blockchain ecosystem revolutionizing how communities fund, earn from, and participate in real-world businesses.
5. KALICERTIF, a blockchain-based certification platform for digital assets and identity verification.
6. tokenforge GmbH, a white-label platform for tokenizing real-world assets in a fully compliant and scalable.
7. Insurechain SL, offering a modular and interoperable infrastructure designed to simplify and accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology across industries.
8. AzurSafe, providing advanced transactional analytics solutions for enterprises and financial institutions to help them fight fraud.
9. Credshields technologies, a Web3 cybersecurity tooling company.
10. CryptoMate, a blockchain-based platform for effortless global transactions.
11. Huralya, a blockchain-based platform for anonymous sign-ins and crypto payments for easy subscriptions.
12. Pirichain Technology, a blockchain-based data ecosystem designed for secure data storage, management, and analysis.
13. Sollpay, a next-generation non-custodial wallet and payment platform.
14. Vizyon France, a decentralized teleradiology platform.
15. AYUMIA, a blockchain-based platform for secure and transparent food tracking and tracing.
16. Epoch Protocol, a coordination layer for intent solvers – tools designed to analyze and understand the intent behind smart contract code or blockchain transactions.

“The Blockchain & Web3 Accelerator is a unique opportunity for innovative blockchain startups to accelerate their growth, develop their solutions, and connect with a strong network of partners and investors. We are excited to support the growth and development of these promising startups and look forward to seeing the impact they will make in the blockchain industry,” says Philip Marais, Global Startup Program Director, OVHcloud.

Meet the Partners

The Blockchain & Web3 Accelerator is supported by well-known industry partners, including:

1. Alchemy, a blockchain development platform for building and deploying blockchain applications.
2. Degen House, helping to build projects on the Solana blockchain and bring them to market.
3. Crypto Mondays London, a blockchain community for networking and education.
4. Super Team Solana, a community of the best talent learning, earning and building in crypto.
5. Fintech District, an open ecosystem created to aggregate the Italian financial services industry and to spread fintech culture and innovation.
6. Dysnix, offering full-cycle DevOps & MLOps for seed+ and high-growth companies.

These partners will provide valuable guidance, mentorship, and resources to the participating startups throughout the Accelerator.

Accelerator Program Overview

The Blockchain & Web3 Accelerator program is designed to support the growth and development of the selected startups. The program will consist of three phases:

1. Phase I – Go-to-Market
   Focused on refining your product-market fit, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. Participants work with our team to sharpen your positioning and business foundations.
2. Phase II – Build
   Deep dive into blockchain technology and cloud integration. Participants collaborate with our Web3 and technical teams to optimize your infrastructure and unlock the full potential of OVHcloud solutions.
3. Phase III – Scale
   Prepare for investor engagement and scalable growth. This phase includes sales strategy and investor readiness.

“As a former startup, OVHcloud understands what founders and their teams need, but as a global organisation which shares blockchain’s ethos of decentralisation, transparency and security, OVHcloud is in a unique position to help nurture and support the growth of tomorrow’s blockchain champions. We look forward to meeting latest group of companies participating in our accelerator,” says Omar Abi Issa, Global Sales Director, Blockchain, Web3 and AI, OVHcloud.

The program will culminate with a Showcase event, which is part of the OVHcloud Partner Network Summit on 20 November 2025, where the 16 participating startups will pitch their solutions to an audience of investors, OVHcloud customers and partners, and industry experts.

To participate in the action, sign up to attend the Showcase event virtually or as part of the OVHcloud Partner Network Summit:

I want to attend the Showcase in Paris on 20 November!

I want to attend the Showcase virtually on 20 November!

If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

The key to achieving this vision lies with YOU, our valued members of OVHcloud’s unique data sovereign ecosystem, including startups, scaleups, incubators, accelerators, venture capital companies, government agencies, technology partners, and other enablers. Together, we are united around a common vision of data freedom, innovation, and mutual growth.

Global Report 2025: 10 Years of Impact

To capture the essence of our unique ecosystem, we have compiled a comprehensive report, “Global Report 2025 – 10 Years of Impact”. This report showcases key stories from our ecosystem, including:

• Our support for Harfanglab, a French scaleup that’s developed cutting-edge technologies to anticipate and neutralise cyberattacks, raising almost €30m and leveraging OVHcloud and the Startup Program to drive innovation, data sovereignty, and cybersecurity excellence.
• The success of Internxt, a Southern Europe scaleup alumni, which has become a recognized privacy-first alternative to mainstream cloud providers, offering secure, user-centric, and environmentally sustainable file-sharing and storage solutions that protect user privacy and data sovereignty.
• The journey of female founders Jeanne Le Peillet and Cecile Doan, who developed a collaborative design SaaS solution, Beink Dream, selected for the France 2030 initiative.
• The acquisition of Startup Program alumnus OpenIO by OVHcloud, which has become our high-performance object storage solution.

“OVHcloud is a great partner if you are looking for a long-term, reliable, affordable and robust provider. The synergy between Internxt’s mission to protect user privacy and OVHcloud’s commitment to data sovereignty has been pivotal.”

Fran Villalba Segarra Founder & CEO at Internxt

The Startup Program: A Decade of Growth

The report also highlights the Startup Program’s journey over the last decade, including how we operate, our partnerships with incubators, accelerators, venture capital companies, and other enablers, what sets us apart, and how we have successfully supported over 5,000 members to date.

Key Statistics

Personalised Support

What sets our Startup Program apart is our personal touch. As Philip Marais, Global Startup Program Director at OVHcloud, explains: “You’re personally onboarded by a manager in your region, have free support from our engineers to solve technical and migration issues, and access to our unique ecosystem to grow your business.”

Download the Report

To learn more about our ecosystem, our plans for the future, and the impact we can have by 2035, download the “Global Report 2025 – 10 Years of Impact” now.

Our 5000+ startups’ journey with OVHcloud highlights how the right cloud partnership can help overcome challenges, achieve sustainable growth, and scale globally. If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

OVHcloud is an industry leader for cloud infrastructure for blockchain and Web3 startups, delivering scalable, compliant, and secure cloud solutions made for decentralised applications, enabling the next era of digital trust.

Whether startups are building blockchain-native products or integrating decentralised technologies, our ecosystem offers the technical support, mentorship, and commercial resources they need to succeed.

Key partners in this accelerator that will help with your go-to-market needs are Degen House, Super Team Solana, Crypto Mondays, Alchemy and Dysnix.

Designed to be light-touch in terms of your time but high-impact in terms of value, the Blockchain and Web3 Accelerator offers everything that is OVHcloud (price/performance, energy efficiency, tech freedom, personal touch, decentralization and security of services) and more.

The 10-week program offers:

• €50k in free cloud credits to use on our Public Cloud solutions. This is in addition to Startup Program credits but the maximum total credits that can be allocated remains €100k.
• Deep-dives into blockchain, GTM strategies, sales training etc.
• Workshops on GTM, sales, investor readiness, and marketing to boost growth
• 1-on-1 mentoring from experts
• Engagement with corporates for possible POCs
• Engagement with Venture Capitalists (VCs) for possible funding

Up to 20 startups will be selected for the cohort of the Blockchain and Web3 Accelerator. Applications open on 4th of June, and the accelerator will run from 16 September 2025 to 20 November 2025.

Entries close on 7^th July 2025 (Apply NOW!) and selected participants will be announced on 23 July 2025.

The 10-week program is divided into 3 phases:

1. Phase I – Go-to-Market
   Focus on refining your product-market fit, marketing, and go-to-market strategy. You’ll work with our team to sharpen your positioning and business foundations.
2. Phase II – Build
   Deep dive into blockchain technology and cloud integration. You’ll collaborate with our Web3 and technical teams to optimize your infrastructure and unlock the full potential of OVHcloud solutions.
3. Phase III – Scale
   Prepare for investor engagement and scalable growth. This phase includes sales strategy and investor readiness, culminating in a final pitch at the OVHcloud Summit in Paris on 20 November 2025.

The accelerator program includes 1-on-1 mentoring from OVHcloud and external experts who will be matched with participants based on their needs. The program is designed to be agile, requiring only three hours a week or less, but can scale to support you as needed. It does also include a 1-year commitment to use OVHcloud’s products and solutions to ensure continuity after exit from the Accelerator.

Applications will need to meet the following criteria to be selected:

• You must be a Startup Program member that has been active in the program or as an OVHcloud customer for at least 1 month (not a member? Apply now)
• Your startup must be working with blockchain technology, but please note that we are unable to admit proof of work or mining blockchain creators into the program
• Preference will be given to Scale level members of the Startup Program

“Startups are an essential part of the blockchain ecosystem and one of the building blocks of the digital trust economy,” says Omar Abi Issa, Global Sales Director, Blockchain, Web3 and AI, OVHcloud. “Many startup ideas are created to solve business problems. However, most businesses and consumers experience these problems differently, and before businesses scale (and ‘go horizontal’) it’s important to learn enough about the market and audience so that your solution is truly innovative and useful.

As a former startup, OVHcloud understands what founders and their teams need, but as a global organisation which shares blockchain’s ethos of decentralisation, transparency and security, OVHcloud is in a unique position to help nurture and support the growth of tomorrow’s blockchain champions. We look forward to meeting latest group of companies participating in our accelerator, and are grateful to each and every application to the program.”

Startups like Bware Labs and Super Protocol have already enjoyed the benefits that the Fast Forward Accelerator offers.

“Our collaboration with OVHcloud has been very fruitful since we started using the platform and we are especially thankful to our account manager.” says Flavian Manea, CEO at Bware Labs

“We are very excited to work with OVHcloud, they are a reliable and high-performing partner. They have seamlessly delivered the growth of Super Protocol’s confidential computing infrastructure on which the future of Web3 is being built,” says Yulia Gontar, COO at Super Protocol

Sign up to the Startup Program and Blockchain and Web3 Accelerator today to benefit from a wealth of support – and scale your business faster.

YouScan, a next-generation AI-powered social listening platform, has carved out a leading position in the MarTech space by helping brands listen to their customers in real time. Founded by Oleksii Orap and headquartered in Kyiv, Ukraine, YouScan has grown into a global SaaS company with a team of 70 people and over 400 clients worldwide. Major brands such as Nestlé, L’Oréal, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Samsung, and McDonald’s rely on YouScan to track online brand mentions and uncover consumer insights, helping them make smarter decisions.

The idea for YouScan came about in 2009 when social media was noticeably starting to change the way consumers interacted with brands. Oleksii Orap, with his extensive background in telecommunications and internet technologies, noticed an opportunity in the data-rich but noisy social media landscape. He envisioned a tool that would allow businesses to hone in on valuable insights and turn raw, unstructured social media data into intelligence.

In 2010, YouScan launched as one of the first social media listening platforms. Fourteen years later, Oleksii was named one of the Top 5 Global Tech Pioneers in Social Media Intelligence by The Social Intelligence Lab, demonstrating just how influential they have been in the industry.

In 2024, YouScan joined the OVHcloud Startup Program and then the Fast Forward AI Accelerator. The decision to partner with OVHcloud came at a critical moment as the company sought more cost-effective, scalable infrastructure solutions. YouScan achieved a tenfold reduction in costs—saving hundreds of thousands of euros annually. The move not only cut expenses but also boosted performance and flexibility.

“Switching to OVHcloud was a game-changer for us. The cost savings on our infrastructure have allowed us to invest more in innovation and product development. OVHcloud’s AI solutions have streamlined our machine learning workflows. Our team can now focus on training and deploying AI models without worrying about complex setups or infrastructure management.”

– Oleksii Orap, CEO and Founder

As an AI-first company, YouScan powers some of its most advanced features with OVHcloud’s AI infrastructure. One of their latest innovations, Insights Copilot, is the industry’s very first AI agent for social listening. It lets users interact with their social listening data through a chat interface, helping brands quickly understand customer sentiment, product comparisons, and emerging trends. YouScan’s Visual Insights capability, a proprietary computer vision technology, processes tens of millions of social media images daily, detecting brand logos and generating automated visual content reports that help brands understand how consumers engage with their products in the real world.

YouScan is now expanding its presence in key markets across the EU, North America, and LATAM. In 2024 alone, the company saw a 54% increase in annual revenue, driven by the growing demand for AI-powered social media intelligence solutions.

With its visionary leadership, cutting-edge AI solutions, and a trusted partnership with OVHcloud, YouScan is set to continue transforming how brands listen to and understand their customers.

“The OVHcloud Startup Program has given us more than just technical resources. Their workshops, mentoring sessions, and global network of partners have been instrumental as we expand into new markets. For any startup looking to scale efficiently and securely, OVHcloud is an ideal partner.”

– Oleksii Orap, CEO and Founder

YouScan’s journey with OVHcloud highlights how the right cloud partnership can help startups and scale-ups overcome challenges, achieve sustainable growth, and scale globally. If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

MapTiler, a pioneering startup based in Switzerland, is transforming the world of digital mapping, designed for developers, enterprises, and governments. At the heart of MapTiler’s solution are two core products: MapTiler Cloud, a map hosting and visualization platform, and MapTiler On-Prem, a solution that enables businesses to serve maps on their infrastructure with full control over data. These platforms give users the ability to integrate highly customizable maps into their applications for navigation, data visualization, and location-based services.

MapTiler was founded by a team of geospatial engineers and entrepreneurs led by Petr Pridal. Their expertise in geospatial technologies and deep commitment to open-source innovation have driven MapTiler’s success, enabling them to offer a mapping solution that balances data sovereignty with advanced technical capabilities.

In 2024, MapTiler joined the OVHcloud Startup Program to support its growing infrastructure needs. As a company undergoing rapid growth and delivering high-performance mapping services worldwide, MapTiler needed a scalable and reliable cloud hosting partner that could offer predictable costs while maintaining European data privacy standards. OVHcloud’s robust cloud infrastructure provided exactly that—enabling MapTiler to handle demanding geospatial data processing workloads and deliver fast, reliable services to its global customer base.

“The OVHcloud Startup Program has been a very supportive environment for MapTiler’s journey, particularly in supporting our cloud infrastructure. As a growing company, we needed their robust and scalable cloud hosting solution with manageable and predictable costs, so we can continue to deliver high-performance services to our customers worldwide.”

– Petr Pridal, Founder

Beyond infrastructure, the OVHcloud Startup Program has given MapTiler access to a network of expert technology partners. Mentorship and strategic guidance from OVHcloud helped the MapTiler team refine its cloud architecture, enhance security, and scale sustainably. With their infrastructure in safe hands, the partnership has given MapTiler a chance to focus on delivering innovative mapping solutions without being held back by infrastructure limitations.

MapTiler is now focused on expanding its global reach and advancing its AI-powered map customization capabilities. The company plans to strengthen its cloud-native geodata hosting services, further strengthening its role as a leader in the logistics, real estate, and mobility industries where precise, customizable mapping solutions are in high demand.

With a commitment to advancing open-source geospatial technologies, ensuring businesses of all sizes can access high-quality mapping tools without vendor lock-in, MapTiler is exploring opportunities to integrate edge computing, machine learning, and 3D mapping into its offerings, setting new standards in digital cartography.

“For MapTiler, our partnership with OVHcloud has been a key enabler of our success, and we strongly recommend it to other ambitious startups aiming to build resilient, high-performance cloud-based solutions.”

– Petr Pridal, Founder

MapTiler’s journey with OVHcloud highlights how the right cloud partnership can help startups and scale-ups overcome challenges, achieve sustainable growth, and scale globally. If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!

Applied Brain Research (ABR) is a fabless semiconductor company founded by a team from the University of Waterloo’s Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, under the leadership of Dr. Chris Eliasmith, the Centre’s founding chair, to commercialize brain-inspired AI inference solutions.

Can you introduce Applied Brain Research and its mission?

ABR’s mission is to bring advanced time series inference out of data centers by empowering edge devices with advanced time series AI capability. Out of its research, ABR invented the Legendre Memory Unit which has established a new chapter of state space models for advanced time series processing. To enable low power edge devices with advanced capabilities like low latency natural language interfaces, ABR has developed an LMU powered time series processor AI accelerator ASIC that will enter the market this year. Our CEO, Kevin Conley, is a semiconductor vet who has built billion dollar businesses in the past and plans to do the same with ABR’s cutting edge technology.

What challenges did ABR face before partnering with OVHcloud?

Our business depends on its ability to train advanced AI models for edge device applications creating technical and financial challenges. This requires the availability of advanced GPUs for network training. Successfully optimizing neural networks for our chip is critical to our success. Our main challenges have been budgetary and scaling our R&D efforts. We decided to explore cloud solutions because investment in our own training capability would be prohibitive both from a cost and management perspective.

How did OVHcloud and the Startup Program help you overcome these challenges?

The Startup Program has let us explore different ways of leveraging OVHcloud’s resources in order to train next generation models, and fine-tune them in ways that would be very difficult to do in house. It lets us quickly expand or focus our efforts without having all of the infrastructure headaches that come along with that typically.

Which OVHcloud services or features do you use, and how do they stand out from other solutions?

We use the Public Cloud service from OVHcloud. Compared to other services from Google, Amazon, etc., OVHCloud provides the most cost-effective solution per FLOP.

How has OVHcloud’s support helped you evolve your infrastructure to meet the demands of your business?

The nature of our AI development cycle means that our usage of AI training hardware fluctuates over time. OVHcloud’s public cloud allows us to dynamically scale up and down our AI training hardware in a cost effective manner.

What tangible results have you achieved since collaborating with OVHcloud?

We have pushed our networks to be the smallest possible ASR networks with the highest accuracy. This was possible because we could do hyper perimeter, searching, using OVHcloud’s infrastructure. Specifically we’ve gotten less than 5% word error rates on full vocabulary speech transcription with a tiny 8 million parameter quantized network. We have built other state of the networks for TTS and Voice Control using the same infrastructure, but we haven’t announced their general availability yet on our platform.

Providing these networks as starting points for customers to use our chip, greatly reduces the barrier to entry for taking advantage of our technologies. Broadening our pre-trained library available customers will only improve that going forward, and this will be much more efficient using OVHcloud than doing it in house.

What are your ambitions for the future of your startup, and how do you see it evolving within the cloud ecosystem? What future challenges do you foresee?

We plan to offer our no code environment to all of our customers, which will effectively scale as we grow, and allow customers to build, train, and deploy all manner of models on our chip. This SaaS offering will be crucial as we deploy our chip to many markets. Our fundamental advantage is for time series processing, i.e. problems where the order of the data in time is important for making decisions. This includes everything from speech and language processing to heartbeat monitoring and fall detection. As a result, we are building a versatile, cloud-hosted development environment that will require rapid scalability.

What advice would you give to other growth-stage startups considering the cloud or joining a support program?

Probably the most important piece of advice is to take advantage of everything that’s provided. This requires some commitment on the side of the startup, but going to the meetings, asking questions, and leveraging the resources is the only way to get the most out of the program.

Applied Brain Research’s journey with OVHcloud, joining the Startup Program then AI Accelerator, highlights how a startup can make the most of available resources to overcome challenges, achieve sustainable growth, and scale. If you’re a startup looking to transform your business, we encourage you to join the OVHcloud Startup Program or contact OVHcloud to discover how our solutions can support your journey!