Telefónica is launching Amérigo, an international venture capital fund that will develop digital opportunities outside of Silicon Valley and London.
Promoted by Telefónica Digital, this initiative lays the foundation to attract and create a global network of innovation funds which will work as a platform, open to the participation of other companies and institutions, both public and private. New creative and technological projects will be promoted from this network through direct funding managed by professionals in the venture capital sector.
The Amérigo program, which is promoted by Telefónica Digital, will be a global network of innovation funds which will work as a platform, open to the participation of other companies and institutions, both public and private. Amérigo starts its activity with a capital of about EUR 300 million, provided by its promoting entities – in particular Telefónica has undertaken initially investments of EUR 68 million for the next five years- and the funds subscribed to the program. This initial capital will allow managing business projects with an aggregated estimated value of €1 billion.
In a first stage, the programme is focused on four countries, Spain, Colombia, Chile and Brazil, where Amérigo already has the support of governments and public financial institutions and also from other private partners.
- In July, Telefónica Digital, the company’s new business division focused on cloud computing, mobile advertising, M2M and eHealth, reiterated its commitment to driving openness in mobile ecosystems and support for Mozilla’s HTML5 platform.
- Telefónica Digital now has global framework agreements with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research In Motion (RIM). In addition, Telefónica will offer Direct to Bill payments as a means of driving the monetisation of mobile content. Telefónica has started to roll out Direct to Bill in Europe, where it is already proving popular with customers. In Germany, 400,000 customers per month on average are now making payments for a variety of products and services across different platforms. Telefónica plans to have the capability live in 14 markets globally by year end.