Madrid, March 11, 2021COFIDES has entered into a financing agreement with the e-learning technology company Netex (www.netexlearning.com) to help it boost its commercial presence in the US.

To this end, it has provided a co-investment loan of 800,000 euros under the FONPYME. The total investment of the project is 1.2 million euros. The funding will be used to set up a subsidiary in the United States as a way to penetrate the US market, the biggest market in the global e-learning industry, with more than 75% of organisations offering online education to their employees. 

COFIDES Chairman & CEO, José Luis Curbelo, welcomed COFIDES' support for Netex's strategy, and pointed out that “online learning has proved invaluable in addressing the COVID-19 health crisis and the effects thereof”. Furthermore, this project, “is in line with COFIDES' objectives to offer support to projects with a focus on innovation and digitalisation, as they contribute to creating and maintaining jobs as well as sustainable development”. 

The Netex CEO, Carlos Ezquerro, highlighted expanding into the US market as one of the company's major challenges for 2021. “COFIDES' support is of the utmost importance at this time as it will allow us to accelerate the company's internationalisation plan while boosting its inorganic growth by expanding into our industry's biggest and most mature market worldwide”.

DRIVER OF SDG 4, QUALITY EDUCATION

This investment significantly contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on Quality Education. Online learning significantly increases the number of young people and adults who have the necessary skills, in particular technical and vocational skills, to access employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. 

ABOUT NETEX

With its headquarters in A Coruña, Netex is the parent company of a group of companies operating in the e-learning technology industry, whose main activity, since its foundation in 1997, has been developing technological products and services in the field of education. Netex has been listed on the MAB since 2017 and has a turnover of around ten million Euros (with annual growth of 30% in recent years), employs more than 150 people, spread out between Oleiros, Madrid, Barcelona, and its subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Mexico, and sells its products in 35 markets backed by a solid network of partners. Its business model is based on the development of educational solutions through technology, and its key clients are companies, publishers, universities and business schools.

ABOUT COFIDES

COFIDES is a state-owned company which has been offering financial support to Spanish companies investing abroad. COFIDES is accredited to the European Union (EU) to manage funds coming from the EU budget, allowing the structuring of transactions with a high impact on development. COFIDES is also accredited to the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) and can therefore structure operations on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, COFIDES is the exclusive manager of FIEX and FONPYME funds on behalf of the Secretariat of State for Trade attached to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism and also supports AECID in managing FONPRODE funds. COFIDES’s shareholders include Banco Santander, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Banco Sabadell and CAF-Development Bank of Latin America.