Google, Cisco to join White House effort for entrepreneurs

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WASHINGTON, April 20 (Bloomberg): Google Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and American Express Co are among companies joining an effort by President Barack Obama to promote entrepreneurship, the White House said today in a statement. The effort, called the Startup America Partnership, is led by AOL Inc co-founder Steve Case as chairman. It is intended to promote private-sector investments in startup companies and small businesses as a way to improve the economy. "These new partnerships will go a long way toward ensuring that startups have every best chance to succeed," the group's chief executive officer, Priceline.com Inc co-founder Scott Case, said in the statement. Google is contributing $100 million for startup companies to use the company's advertising services. American Express will offer $125 million in purchasing discounts and business services and Cisco will provide training for 6,000 entrepreneurs. Those commitments, and others by companies such as First Data Corp., Ernst & Young, Microsoft Corp and Intuit Inc, follow pledges from businesses including Facebook Inc., Intel Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and International Business Machines Corp (IBM) to increase their investments in startups. LinkedIn Corp, Salesforce.com Inc and Silicon Valley Bank are also announcing their involvement. Obama will travel today to Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, for a town-hall meeting about government spending and the need to reduce the budget deficit.