The ICO, through Fond-ICO Next Tech, will mobilize 140 million euros of funding to digital companies and high-impact technology projects

The Official Credit Institute (ICO) has approved through AXIS, the venture capital company of the ICO, the participation of Fond-ICO Next Tech in the Leadwind fund in the amount of up to 70 million euros to finance digital companies and high-impact technological projects. This participation will generate investments in public-private collaboration of a minimum of 140 million euros in Spanish companies growing in sectors of high technological impact.

Fond-ICO Next Tech

Fond-ICO Next Tech is a joint initiative of the ICO and SEDIA launched with the aim of promoting the development of innovative high-impact digital projects and investment in growing companies, within the framework of the strategy Spain Digital 2025 and included in the actions of “Modernization and digitization of the industrial fabric and the SME” of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the government.

The objective of Fond-ICO Next Tech is to invest both in funds (private equity funds, corporate funds or other investment vehicles) and in growing Spanish companies in the technology sector. The objective is to mobilize joint public-private partnership resources of 4,000 million euros (half of public funds and the other half of private investment) in an initial period of four years.

The investments of Fond-ICO Next Tech will allow to promote digital entrepreneurship in digital enabling technologies, as well as consolidate the growth of highly innovative technology-based companies. This fund is one of the key instruments available to the ICO to promote the digital transformation of the Spanish productive fabric, one of the strategic priorities of the ICO for the coming years.

The promotion of entrepreneurship and the scalability of projects in new digitization technologies is essential to promote the recovery and transformation of the Spanish production model, providing it with higher levels of competitiveness and capacity to generate employment. This will promote business growth and competitiveness, innovation in the Spanish economy, investment of international funds, as well as the attraction and retention of talent.

This initiative aims to place Spain among the leading countries in support of the growth of technological companies and align the strategy of investment dynamization with other pan-European initiatives such as the European Tech Champions Initiative, to which Spain has recently joined.

First participation of Fond-ICO Next Tech: Leadwind fund.

Leadwind is a venture capital fund managed by KFund that has a target size of between 200 and 250 million euros and capacity to make investments of between 5 and 15 million euros in growing companies in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, with special attention to enabling technologies.

Enabling technologies are behind exponential improvements that are already visible in different areas (economic, social and cultural), as well as in key economic sectors such as health (early detection of pathologies, development of new medicines), transport (autonomous vehicles) or municipal services.

Leadwind will invest mainly in projects that will have a technological base based on software and/or platforms, prioritizing the application of artificial intelligence, the use of blockchain technologies and centralized networks, the Internet of Things, 5G connectivity, augmented and enriched reality, cloud data analytics and processing solutions in the Edge or robotics, among others.

About AXIS

Axis works in public-private partnership with the venture capital sector in all areas of activity and at all stages of companies. Currently, it has assumed commitments to manage up to 7.150 Million euros in its four funds: Fond-ICO Next Tech, Fond-ICO SME, Fond-ICO ESG Infrastructure and Fond-ICO Global, which would allow a joint mobilization of public and private resources of more than 15 billion euros in the next five years depending on the capacity of resource absorption and materialization of projects of the private sector.