The ICO, which continues to support the risk capital industry, plans to launch before the end of the year, a new call of the Fond-ICO, program to inject public money to the sector. They are working together with Axis, a manager in charge of the program, in the disbursements of the previous call through which €284 Million will be distributed among eleven risk capital managers.
It is not known what the future of the program will be, since it is expected that the disbursement of the next call will consume all the available capital, and therefore the program will need to be extended. If this is confirmed, it would be the third time that the program’s budget has been increased. The ICO indicates that the program itself has a “continuing vocation”.
Since the launch of the first call in 2013, this tool is known as the greatest public support to the private capital industry and at the same time its anchor investor, since in Spain there are hardly any institutional investors that support this type of alternative assets, unlike other countries.
Since its launch, Fond-ICO’s investee funds have provided more than €3,200 million in 552 investments in Spanish companies that employ more than 155,000 employees. Thanks to this program, almost all private equity firms have benefited, firms such as MCH, Espiga and Queka Real Partners were the winners in the last expansion category. The categories of the Fond-ICO have been expanded since its launch and it also distributes money to different business segments such as debt, venture capital or incubation.
On the other hand, the Fond-ICO has served to attract capital to Spain, since several international management companies have already benefited from this program to raise funds for some of their vehicles. Proof of this is that in each call for proposals the percentage of international funds presented increases, and this benefits Spain, since the selected management companies are obliged to allocate 50% of their capital to investments in Spanish companies, one of the conditions.
Sources: El Economista
