The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
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.
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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 crowd-funds loans, to help businesses in Africa, the Middle East and Indonesia. Indian companies will get $15 million.
By Foo Yun Chee; Editor: Barbara Lewis
As the German sportswear giant taps surging demand for its Samba and Gazelle sneakers, it’s also taking steps to spread its bets ahead of peak interest.
A profitable, multi-trillion dollar fashion industry populated with brands that generate minimal economic and environmental waste is within our reach, argues Lawrence Lenihan.
RFID technology has made self-checkout far more efficient than traditional scanning kiosks at retailers like Zara and Uniqlo, but the industry at large hesitates to fully embrace the innovation over concerns of theft and customer engagement.
The company has continued to struggle with growing “at scale” and issued a warning in February that revenue may not start increasing again until the fourth quarter.