​ENGIE joins the Alliance for Open Innovation

The Alliance for Open Innovation’s approach is based in particular on implementing several major principles:

- Linking startups with existing business lines in major companies
- Sharing information (strategy, market opportunities) to develop collaboration
- Defining the conditions for external communication and promoting startups
- The confidentiality of information exchanged
- Agreements on the terms of a balanced partnership
- Providing opportunities for full-scale testing before market deployment
- Adapting big companies' decision-making processes to the realities of startups and setting up a way to mediate between them
- The balanced distribution of intellectual property rights resulting from the partnership

As Axelle Lemaire stated during the first forum for Open Innovation in December 2015 in Paris:
"The approach to open innovation that 50 companies and associations are currently involved in is a profound revolution in the way we innovate and create, and has been conceived to fit an open and living ecosystem. It is part of the movement set in motion by the French Tech. Open innovation is a source of opportunities for both big businesses and startups. Today, every sector of the economy is finding that opening up to their ecosystem a source of accelerated renewal."

At ENGIE, working with startups can take many forms:
- Logistical support in terms of business, marketing or strategic coaching
- Providing places to conduct full-scale tests
- Co-developing solutions through company subsidiaries
- Capital investment from the ENGIE New Ventures investment fund

Learn more on the Alliance for Open Innovation