By Mohamed Fawzy
Hatem Dowidar, CEO of Vodafone Egypt, said that in two weeks Vodafone Ventures Fund (VVF) will announce its investment in two companies without exceeding 30% of its shares.
He expects that during the first year, VVF will invest in 10-15 technology companies. VVF’s strategy enables it to acquire all of the company’s shares if it proposed innovative and unusual solutions or to disengage afterwards.
Dowidar explained that VVF will not interfere in the management of these companies; however, it will only appoint one or a maximum of two representatives in the board of directors.
Mohamed Elayuty, Investment Manager at VVF, confirmed that the fund is negotiating to buy shares in six other companies. In addition, VVF intends to open communication channels with the largest number of small companies in the field of communications and technology.
VVF’s strategic plan includes investing EGP 20 million in start-up companies working in communications. The fund will provide technical and technological support services for these start-ups through a technological incubation center- Vodafone xone. The incubator’s maximum capacity includes 15 companies. On a separate note, Dowidar said that the constant power failure is one of the biggest problems Vodafone faces currently. 7% of Vodafone’s stations were out of services last Thursday. In addition, 25% of the stations reached the power alarm stage, and are threatened by service outages. The Shubra electricity generation station crisis is proven to have caused these risks.
