French telecommunications firm Orange is unperturbed by potential challenges within Nigeria's competitive market and is determined to engage the West African country's startup ecosystem.

"At Orange we believe African innovation has no border," says Marketing Director Open Web Services (APIs), Middle-East and Africa, Aurélien Duval-Delort. "We have seen great projects in all Orange countries, but we know that Nigeria holds one of the biggest and most dynamic startup ecosystems in Africa. Using our APIs, Nigerian startups can build innovative services which will work in all Orange footprint covering up to 110m customers."

Duval-Delort said that the telco can provide startups with an automated online process that will grant them access to its APIs via the website with online payment when required.

"We would like to hear more about Nigerian startups' difficulties to export their services to our footprint and then we will come up with dedicated answers," he said. "Do they need more information about these markets? Alternative payment methods? Local support from our accelerators and incubators? We're very eager to engage this conversation."

Orange Business Service, the B2B division of Orange Group, recently established a new sales office in Nigeria serving 75 customers mainly multinational companies from Europe and Americas through network services.

This follows its April acquisition of a €75-million equity interest in Africa Internet Group – which runs Nigeria's top online store Jumia - joining AXA, Goldman Sachs and investors MTN Group, Millicom and Rocket Internet for growth opportunities in Africa.

Questions remain as to the likely hindrances the French company could encounter to leverage its access gain into the Nigerian market - since it is not presently operational as a telco in the country and it would compete with foreign telcos such as MTN, Etisalat, and Airtel.

Duval-Delort has played this down. "Of course, having local teams on the ground is always better. However, when it comes to digital innovation, a lot can be done remotely. Any Nigerian startup can access our website, use our APIs. In addition, we welcome partnerships of all kinds to facilitate Orange API adoption in Nigeria; we would like to work with incubators, accelerators, specialised websites, local VCs, etc, like we already do in our footprint."