Oviedo (EFE).- The Asturias Growth investment fund already has “very tied” the agreements to contribute between ten and fifteen million euros to five medium-sized companies located in the autonomous community with a high potential for international growth and job creation , several of them related to offshore wind power and high technology.
The data has been provided by the founder and president of the venture capital manager LUAfund, José Carlos Díez, promoter of Asturias Growth, a fund that has been established for an initial duration of ten years and 50 million euros of resources, half of which which, as a minimum, must be used to promote the growth and size of companies located in Asturias.
The fund, which has already been approved by the National Securities Market Commission, has been presented today in Oviedo at an event attended by the President of the Principality, Adrián Barbón, and company executives and professionals from the financial world .
In the absence of finalizing the agreements, Díez has indicated that they hope to have closed before the summer the first five investments in the industrial sector and high technology, and that throughout 2024 they expect the fund to reach a minimum of 15 companies and employ some 25 or 30 million euros, without ruling out that they could reach 50 million.
Companies with between 20 and 50 workers
“They will be private companies with between 20 and 50 workers with potential for expansion, especially internationally, who will help make the leap,” stressed Díez, who foresees the creation of at least a thousand direct jobs, most of them linked to the first five projects that it will support.
These are companies with between 20 and 50 workers who in a period of five years could have between 200 and 300 direct jobs, pointed out the founder of LUAfund, who has linked some of them to the expansion that they will see hand in hand with energy companies such as Totalenergy or Iberdrola and their offshore wind projects around the world.
The fund already has the financial backing of leading companies such as Corporación Alimentaria Peñasanta, Windar, Gomvarri o, Caja Rural de Asturias or ACH Hoteles, which could now be joined by other more institutional investors from Madrid, or international ones, such as Indianos and banks.
LUAfund and the Asturian Federation of Entrepreneurs signed the agreement on February 13 to promote this investment fund that aims to attract private savings from assets, families, companies and institutions to channel it into companies in the region, promote the birth of new multinationals and channel resources towards innovation, employment and productivity.
“Asturias Growth will be a pilot that can lead the growth of medium-sized companies to be able to compete with American or Asian companies on an equal footing”, Díez highlighted, who has stressed that if Asturias wants to reach the European average of medium-sized companies, it needs one hundred, and that only with this fund 15 will be created.
In fact, he has indicated that the 30 million he expects to invest at least between now and next year is the equivalent of a fund of 1,500 million euros at the national level, and that today there is none of that relevance.
José Armando Tellado will chair the advisory council
The general manager of CAPSA Food, José Armando Tellado will be the president of the advisory board of Asturias Growth, an advisory body made up of eleven professionals from different sectors and areas with high growth potential.
Tellado has assured that from this body they will contribute knowledge, experience, collaboration, network and social capital “to better hit the investments” in which CAPSA Food, in addition to being one of the first investors in the fund, will also be positioned to enter as co-investors.
Barbón has also been convinced that this fund is a bet “not risky, but successful” based on the idea that “you can invest in Asturias and its companies” and that it should contribute to “stop living in the nostalgia and thinking about what role he wants to play in the future”.
Barbón recalled that there are already more than 200 technology-based companies that account for half of the more than 6,000 jobs created in recent years, that by the end of the year there will be 400 employees in the twelve community research centers that the Principality it has more companies that come than those that leave and that in 2022 foreign investment shot up 555 percent. EFE