ICO, through Fond-ICO Next Tech, will mobilise €140 million in financing for digital companies and high-impact technology projects

01 marzo 2022

  • Fond-ICO Next Tech's participation of up to €70 million in the Leadwind fund will generate public-private partnership investments of at least €140 million in Spanish growth companies in high-impact technology sectors.
  • This is the first investment of Fond-ICO Next Tech, a joint initiative of AXIS, the ICO's venture capital company, and the State Secretariat for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA).

The Official Credit Institute (ICO) has approved through AXIS, the ICO's venture capital company, the participation of Fond-ICO Next Tech in the Leadwind fund for up to €70 million to finance digital companies and high-impact technology projects. This participation will generate public-private partnership investments of at least €140 million in emerging Spanish companies in high-impact technology sectors.

Fond-ICO Next Tech

Fond-ICO Next Tech is a joint initiative launched by ICO and SEDIA, it aims to promote the development of high-impact innovative digital projects and invest in growth companies, within the framework of the Spain Digital 2025 strategy and included in the "Modernisation and digitisation of the industrial fabric and SMEs" actions of the Government's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The objective of Fond-ICO Next Tech is to invest both in funds (venture capital funds, corporate funds or other investment vehicles) and in Spanish growth companies in the technology sector. The aim is to mobilise joint public-private partnership resources of €4 billion (half from public funds and half from private investment) over an initial four-year period.

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

Promoting entrepreneurship and the scalability of projects in new digitalisation technologies is essential to boost the recovery and transformation of the Spanish production model, making it more competitive and capable of generating employment. This will encourage business growth and competitiveness, the innovation of the Spanish economy, the investment of international funds, as well as the attraction and retention of talent.

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

First participation of Fond-ICO Next Tech: Leadwind fund

Leadwind is a venture capital fund managed by KFund with a target size of between 200 and 250 million euros and the capacity to make investments of between 5 and 15 million euros in growth companies in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, with a focus on enabling technologies.  
Enabling technologies are behind exponential improvements that can already be observed in different fields (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 basis predominantly based on software and/or platforms, with emphasis on the application of artificial intelligence, the use of blockchain technologies and centralised networks, the internet of things, 5G connectivity, augmented and enriched reality, cloud data analytics solutions and Edge processing and robotics, among others. 

About AXIS

Axis acts in a public-private partnership with the venture capital industry in all fields of activity and at all stages of business. It currently has commitments to manage up to €7.15 billion in its four funds: Fond-ICO Next Tech, Fond-ICO Pyme, Fond-ICO Infraestructuras ESG and Fond-ICO Global, which would allow a joint mobilisation of public and private resources of more than €15 billion over the next five years, depending on the private sector's capacity to absorb resources and materialise projects.