Google announces $800m support for small businesses, crisis response

Google pledged more than 800 million U.S. dollars of support on Friday to help combat the coronavirus outbreak around the world.

“As the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen around the world, it’s taking a devastating toll on lives and communities. To help address some of these challenges, today we’re announcing a new $800+ million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.

According to Sundar Pichai, the commitment includes 250 million dollars in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and government agencies provide critical information to contain the COVID-19, reports Xinhua.

A portion of 340 million dollars will be available as Google Ads credits to SMBs with active accounts over the past year and 200 million dollars of investment fund will be used to support NGOs and financial institutions on helping small businesses with access to capital, in addition to tens of millions of dollars in other forms such as Google Cloud credit.

Culled from newtelegraphng.com