The umbrella fund Catalunya Lidera, endowed with 285 million euros, will finance transfer initiatives in health, deeptech, and advanced technologies, among other segments. Consellera Romero highlights that the fund “will support innovation in our country” so that the knowledge being generated “reaches the market.” The Generalitat thus reinforces its commitment to public-private collaboration formulas that multiply the impact of public capital.
The ICF will increase to 645 million euros the resources allocated to venture capital investments to support transformative business projects that contribute to Catalunya’s economic leadership. The consellera for Economy and Finance, Alícia Romero, presented today the public bank's new investment strategy at an event with fund managers and companies from the sector, where she announced the creation of the investment fund Catalunya Lidera, an umbrella fund endowed with 285 million euros that will finance transfer initiatives in health, deeptech, and advanced technologies, among other segments.
“We are creating this umbrella fund to support innovation in our country. We are leaders in research and knowledge generation, but we struggle to get this knowledge to the market,” the consellera emphasized. Romero recalled that one of the major challenges for Catalan companies is to scale up in order to gain greater capacity for innovation and internationalization, “and this new strategy provides us with tools to achieve that.”
The Catalunya Lidera fund represents a leap forward in the ICF's venture capital strategy, reinforcing its investor role in Catalunya both in terms of the volume of resources mobilized and the range of projects and companies that will be supported. “Very often, public administrations allocate resources to develop public policies, but there is no return. We want that return to exist so we can continue investing in our companies, creating a virtuous circle that makes us more productive and helps us grow in scale and innovation,” she added.
This umbrella fund, together with the ICF’s existing venture capital instruments — which amount to 360 million euros — will allow coverage of all possible investment stages, from the early beginnings of a project to much more advanced phases. In this way, the Generalitat consolidates its commitment to public-private collaboration formulas that multiply the economic and social impact of public capital. “We are proposing a long-term strategy in which venture capital helps invest more in early stages, taking on risks that private capital sometimes cannot, in order to multiply efforts,” Romero remarked.
At the event, the consellera was accompanied by the secretary for Economy and Finance and president of the ICF Governing Board, Juli Fernández, and by the CEO of the ICF, Vanessa Servera.
An umbrella fund with four investment instruments
The Catalunya Lidera investment fund is structured as an umbrella fund that brings together four instruments, with a total endowment of 285 million euros:
Lidera Transferència en Salut (60 M€). This new fund will invest in health and life sciences research projects originating from Catalan universities and research centers, with the goal of carrying out the necessary technological developments and ultimately commercializing the research results. The Government is expected to approve the creation of the fund in the coming weeks.
Lidera Tecnologies Avançades (55 M€). The investments of this fund, initially launched as the FITA fund, are directed at both technology transfer and intellectual property rights projects, as well as companies in the pre-seed, seed, or start-up phases. Of the 55 million euros, 30 are contributed by the Generalitat, 15 by the European Investment Fund, and the remaining 10 by private investors.
Lidera Conversió Impacte i Innovació (70 M€). Co-financed by the Generalitat, the ICF, and the Ajuntament de Barcelona, work is currently underway to define the investment objectives, which will be directed, among others, at the fields of deeptech and the circular economy.
Lidera Grans Empreses (100 M€). This fund targets mature companies with high turnover, with the aim of preserving the roots of Catalan companies and their decision-making centers in the region. Originally created as the Fons Arrels, it is financed 50% by the Generalitat and 50% by the ICF.