Telefónica Open Future_ commits US$200m for innovation platform

Telefónica has announced that it has entered into a limited partnership with Coral Group to form an investment platform to discover, create and deliver innovative products and solutions to accelerate and enhance the digital experience of its customers in Europe and Latin America.

Telefónica Open Future_, the programme which integrates all open innovation initiatives of the Group, is Coral’s Communications Investment Platform (CIP) by committing US$200 million. Telefónica Open Future_ is establishing itself as a front runner in forming “innovation factories” to accelerate the creation of new and disruptive technologies to benefit Telefónica’s 320 million customers.

Telefónica and Coral intend to expand the reach of the CIP with up to four additional communication service providers around the world with similar commitments to real innovation, leveraging upon each other’s innovations. With these additional partners, the CIP is expected to have up to US$1 billion to invest in new technologies and services that will reach 1-2 billion customers.

Telefónica is combining the efforts of CIP and Telefonica’s R&D&I in order to enhance the return on Telefónica’s future capital investments (more than US$7.5 billion in 2014) and help transform the company into a major market player in areas such as next generation networks, big data and machine, and the Internet of Things.

The investments in the CIP further supplements Telefónica Open Future_’s open innovation initiatives and strong support to global tech entrepreneurs and startups through its 310 million euros pre-existing commitments to the Open Future_ global online acceleration platform and crowd-working spaces; the Wayra acceleration academies; the Amerigo Funds and Telefónica Ventures; and through rapidly growing alliances with numerous institutions within the Telefónica footprint and relevant partners such as China Unicom, the Tsinghua University and the governments of South Korea and Finland among others.  With presence in 17 different countries, these initiatives have funded over 550 companies and created new digital employment for more than 5,000 people.

Telefónica Open Future_ and CIP will seek to further accelerate and expand Telefónica’s global transformation into a “digital telco”, being at the cutting edge of technology and smart investments.

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