The Leadwind Fund, launched by Telefónica and K Fund, made the first close with €140 million

press release

to Telephone

Madrid, 20 April 2022. – K Fund, Leadwind Fund Manager, today announced the first close of this vehicle in the amount of €140 million. It was launched last September by Telefónica with K FundLeadwind was born with the aim of integrating public and private investors and investing in startups located in southern Europe, prioritizing Spain and Latin America to promote companies with a disruptive and transformative technology base, or deep tech scaling.

The fund’s target size is 250 million euros and has the capacity to make investments of at least 5 million euros. In this way, Leadwind supports the transformation of the country, strengthens the maturity of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and fosters innovation at scale with the ambition of achieving global reach. To support internationalization, the fund is planning to have its own office in São Paulo (Brazil) soon.

The fund will make investments in the intersection of technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, edge computing, 5G connectivity, blockchain or cloud services, which are expected to be the enablers of new business models that will emerge and that will have the greatest impact on the industry. In the six months since its launch, the Leadwind team has already analyzed over 150 domains already working on these technologies.

At the last Mobile World Congress, Nadia Calvino, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, announced that the Executive would invest up to €70 million from Next Tech Fund-ICO in Leadwind. He thus becomes the fund’s primary public investor, with a share of close to 35%.

Telefónica contributes approximately 35% of the total investment, making it the main private company in the fund’s portfolio. Besides Spanish telecoms companies, other related companies have backed Leadwind with their investments, such as BBVA, Go-Hub and SATEC, as well as institutional investors such as AXIS-ICO and private family offices.

Irene Gomez, Director of Open Innovation at Telefónica says: “Leadwind is a great example of how we can foster entrepreneurship at scale, through public and private collaborations, and take another step towards the maturity of the ecosystem by investing in more advanced stages of businesses. We are confident That many public and private entities will join the fund, because betting on these companies that will promote technology that will be critical in the future will help us strengthen the fabric of business and be a more efficient country.”

Leadwind was invested by Telefonica VenturesTelefónica’s venture capital tool. From this module, they address the significant challenges facing the telecom industry, foster new businesses and sectors aligned with the telecoms strategy, and enhance business on a global scale, but with a local presence. Currently, it has a portfolio of over 10 startups invested directly and over 120 startups invested through its network of 9 venture capital funds.