BBVA invests 600 million in innovation funds

BBVA invested EUR 600 million in venture capital funds100 of which are dedicated to operations in techno-financial and artificial intelligence sectoras announced this Thursday by the president of the bank, Carlos Torres.

Torres announced this in his closing speech at the ‘BBVA Spark Open Summit’ event held by the bank this Thursday in Barcelona, ​​as part of meeting the ecosystem of start-up companiesAfter devoting a good part of his speech to the commitment of the entity he chairs for this type of company, Torres announced that the investment the entity has committed to venture capital funds amounts to HRK 600 million.

“We were pioneers in this. More than ten years ago, we opened an office in San Francisco (USA) to start investing venture capital from our own balance sheet,” Torres recalled.

The president specified, as an analysis of this announced investment, that 100 of these millions were invested in the last 18 months and will be intended for investment in companies in the fintech and artificial intelligence sectors, with a special emphasis on ‘cleantech’ companies, ie companies that use clean energy in their production chain.

“We do it in part because it makes financial sense. It’s the kind of investment that has brought us an average return of 20% per year so far,” explained Torres, “and on the other hand, we do it because it has strategic sense: because we want to support companies that will define the future and make them our customers.

Commitment

Torres praised the conditions of Barcelona as an ecosystem for these new companies, reminded that various rankings put it as the third city in the world chosen by entrepreneurs to launch a new project and confirmed the bank’s commitment to the sector.

In this context, Torres announced that the bank’s branch specialized in providing services to start-ups, BBVA Spark, will arrive in Argentina in the coming months, after it was “successfully” launched in Spain, Colombia and Mexico. “Support for entrepreneurs has been in the bank’s genes since its foundation. That’s why a year ago we bet on the creation of BBVA Spark, which already has 600 clients and shows that we can find financing solutions of any kind adapted to the characteristics of these new generations of companies,” said Torres.

Torres insisted on it BBVA will continue to bet on everything related to digitization and reminded that 78% of products sold by the bank last year were through digital channels.