Google to invest $75 million in coronavirus-hit small businesses

FILE PHOTO: Letters spell the word “Alphabet” as they are seen on a computer screen with a Google search page in this photo illustration taken in Paris, France, August 11, 2015. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google is teaming up with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and two other organisations in Latin America and Asia to provide $75 million in funding to small- and medium-sized companies suffering from the impact of COVID-19.

The funds are part of an $800 million initiative announced in March last year in response to the pandemic.

Google, a unit of Alphabet, said on Wednesday that it would invest in two EIF funds, giving $15 million in loan capital to 1,000 European small businesses and $10 million in EIF’s venture capital fund backing 200 life sciences companies.

The EIF is part of the European Investment Bank group, the lending arm of the European Union.

In Latin America, Google will work with the Inter-American Development Bank to allocate $8 million to small companies.

It has also set up a $26 million loan fund with Kiva, an organisation that crowdfunds loans, to help businesses in Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. Indian companies will get $15 million.

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