Axel Springer Digital Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of Germany-based digital publisher Axel Springer, has acquired a 20% stake in France-based search engine Qwant for about €5m ($6.8m).
Launched in July 2013, Qwant presents users with webpage matches for their search terms together with social media results, news, products and more. It currently processes around 10 million searches per day.
Ulrich Schmitz, managing director of Axel Springer Digital Ventures, said: “There is a lot of innovation on the search market. In order to participate and to learn we are engaging in a young company that is dedicated to add diversity and new impulses.”