shareholder

Spain wants to have its own “sovereign” AI. The first step is called Sherpa.ai, and the State is already a shareholder

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The Basque company Sherpa.ai, specialized in AI and data privacy, closed at the beginning of July an $18 million financing round. This has some relevance, since the State itself participated in the round through the American fund Forgepoint Capital, being the first time that the Government has become a shareholder in the company. What has happened? Sherpa.ai, founded in Erandio (Vizcaya) by Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, has closed its first round of financing since 2021, the year in which had raised 8.5 million dollars. In this new injection of capital, the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), the public vehicle linked to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, enters as an investor. Known as the “digital SEPI”, it is the way that the Government has to invest in technology companies. Who is behind. The fund leading the operation is Forgepoint Capital, a Silicon Valley firm specialized in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence that, as share From El Mundo, he had already invested in two other Basque companies in the sector, Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing. Along with Forgepoint, there are repeat investors who were already in the capital of Sherpa.ai: the Mundi Ventures fund, from investor Javier Santiso; Ekarpen, the Basque Government’s venture capital vehicle; and Allegra Holdings, one of the investment companies of the Losantos Ucha family, precisely the owner of the largest fortune in La Rioja. In detail. Sherpa.ai has been operating for more than a decade and it is one of the Spanish companies with the most experience in artificial intelligence. They focus mainly on what they call “data sovereignty”, that is, the possibility of training and using large language models without the information leaving the client’s servers. It is an approach that is increasingly in demand in this sector, since no company likes having their data flying around while they use AI. Among its clients are Indra, which in fact was close to buying the company two years ago, the United States National Institute of Health (NIH), Caja Laboral, Unicaja and Prosegur, according to they count from the middle. Why does it matter? The entry of SETT into Sherpa.ai is part of the distribution of European funds that the Government has been allocating to technology companies considered key to strengthening Spain’s digital sovereignty. According to collect El Mundo, this operation is one of the last in which the digital SEPI has participated with this item of European funds, since the deadline to commit the capital expired on June 30. In recent weeks, this same route of public financing has also reached another Basque company, Multiverse Computing, which received more than 100 million euros, as well as Openchip. The founder and CEO of Sherpa.ai, Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, explained that “this round allows us to accelerate our vision: to develop and commercialize a secure and scalable artificial intelligence platform that allows companies and governments to harness the full potential of AI without giving up control, privacy and sovereignty of their data.” Investigation. The company assures having also reinforced its scientific activity in parallel. And at the beginning of July he presented a study on how to train large language models with private data distributed among different organizations, without the need to share them, which reinforces this commercial discourse of technological sovereignty with the intention of favoring sectors such as health, banking or public administration. Basque Country, on fire. With the new funds, Sherpa.ai plans to accelerate the development of its platform and expand its international presence, especially in sectors such as healthcare, finance, cybersecurity and government. Furthermore, the Basque technology ecosystem is gaining traction, as several AI companies in the region have received capital injections these last weeks from the digital SEPI (the aforementioned Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing), just before the deadline to commit European funds. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega breaks his personal purchase record in Europe: more than 800 million euros for offices in Paris

A single shareholder will earn 3,234 million euros thanks to Inditex’s record profits: Amancio Ortega, of course

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There are companies that never stop breaking their own records and Inditex is one of them. The Galician group that owns Zara, Massimo Dutti or Pull&Bear has closed its 2025 fiscal year with a record net profit of 6,220 million euros, which is 6% more than the previous year. It is the fourth consecutive year that Inditex exceeds its own historical highs. However, what is really striking is not only the record achieved by the textile giant based in Arteixobut that record profit also implies unprecedented dividends for its shareholders. The 2026 dividend is the largest that Amancio Ortega will receive from Inditex in the entire historical series. No less than 3,234 million euros. A billion-dollar dividend. The Board of Directors of Inditex approved in its presentation of 2025 results the distribution of dividends among its shareholders. Given the increase in profits obtained this year, Inditex will offer a total dividend of 1.75 euros gross per share, which represents an increase of 4.17% compared to what it delivered the previous year. This dividend is made up of two parts: an ordinary component of 1.20 euros per share, equivalent to 60% of net profit, and an extraordinary payment of 0.55 euros per share. As is customary for the textile giant, the distribution of this dividend will be carried out in two equal payments of 0.875 euros per share. The first, scheduled for May 4, 2026, and the second will be sent on November 2, 2026. Two dates on the calendar that, for Amancio Ortega, have a very specific economic implication. What happens to Amancio Ortega. With a participation of 59.29% of the capital, distributed between his company Pontegadea (50.010%) and Partler Participaciones, Amancio Ortega controls 1,848 million shares of Inditex. Applying the dividend of 1.75 euros for each share, the resulting figure is 3,234 million euros gross, which implies surpassing the barrier of 3,000 million euros for the second consecutive year. Ortega received 3,104 million euros in 2025 for this same concept. To put this data in a little perspective, in the last five years, Inditex has raised its dividend by 88%. During that period alone, Ortega has earned 13.12 billion euros in dividends. Almost half of that amount, about 6.3 billion, corresponds only to the last two years. 100% of that income has gone directly to the accounts of Pontegadea, with which it makes all the investments that have led it to become the largest Spanish real estate by value of assets and one of the largest in Europe. The rest of the Ortega family also receives dividends. Despite being the largest company on the Ibex 35, Inditex has not lost the participation of the Ortega family, so its founder is not the only one who benefits from the distribution. His eldest daughter, Sandra Ortegacontrols 5.05% of the capital through the Rosp Corunna companywith 157.48 million shares without voting rights. For them, he will receive 275 million euros in dividends. A figure that, by itself, would be an extraordinary income for any medium-sized company. Curiously, Marta Ortega, youngest daughter of the tycoon of fashion and current president of the company, only controls 42,511 Inditex shares, for which she will receive a payment of 74,400 euros for those dividends. An abysmal difference with respect to his father. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega: the billionaire who lives like a neighbor (except for private jets and superyachts) Image | GTRES, Unsplash (Igal Ness)

The new mayor of New York is a rare bird in the US, but he has an even more unexpected facet: a shareholder of Real Oviedo

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Among the many congratulations that Zohran Mamdani has received over the last few days, after conquering the seat of mayor of New York, there is one that stands out as unexpected: that of Real Oviedo. Yesterday the club carbayón conveyed his congratulations via It may sound strange, but it is better understood when you know a key fact: Mamdani has been a shareholder of Real Oviedo for years. To understand it you have to go back to 2012. Who is Zohran Mamdani? That question might have made sense a few years ago, when Mamdani was one of a long list of members of the Albany Assembly. Today his name is one of the most popular in the United States, even outside the political sphere. The reason: on Tuesday he beat Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa in the race for New York City Council, becoming the elected successor of Eric L. Adams and crowning a dazzling rise. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it so popular? Taking into account that New York is the main city in the United States (and one of the most media-rich on the planet), becoming its mayor should be enough to gain global projection, but Mamdani stands out for something else: an unorthodox profile. So much so, in fact, that it is a rare bird in the long history of the municipality. To start with his age: he has just turned 34, making him the youngest politician to hold office in the last century. As if that weren’t enough, Mamdani is an immigrant (born in Kampala, Uganda), Muslim, made his debut in the world of rap under the name Mr. Cardamomo and defines himself as a “democratic socialist.” He is also a skilled communicator, handles himself with ease in networks and has not hesitated to run as one of the strongest voices in the opposition to Donald Trump, whom he sent a public message after proclaiming himself the winner of the municipal elections: “I know you’re watching. I only have three words for you: turn up the volume! New York will continue to be a city of immigrants, built by immigrants and driven by immigrants. And starting tonight led by an immigrant.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. And what does it have to do with Oviedo? To answer that question we have to go back to 2012, when Real Oviedo passed through low hours. In Spain the winds of recession were blowing and the club carbayón He was seen with battered accounts and confined to the Second Division Bfrom which it would still take time to come out. The club itself refers to that period, which began in 2001, as a “fight for survival”. With that backdrop, the Asturian team decided to desperately search for a capital increase to save it from the hole, an effort in which the city devoted itself and which had the support of well-known figures, such as the popular British journalist Sid Lowewho gave visibility to the campaign on social networks. The call from Lowe, a native of Archway (London), but a fan of Real Oviedo since his student years in the Asturian capital, came among others to a young man from Kampala, a football fan and with musical whims: Zohran Mamdani. At the time he was only 21 years old, but he decided to join the wave of support. On November 9, 2012, at 5:47 p.m., he responded to Sid Lowe’s request with a message posted on Twitter: “I just bought a share, am I possibly the first shareholder of the eral Oviedo based in Maine? #SOSRealOviedo.” His tweet passed without pain or glory. The message from one more fan. One more among hundreds. Things changed on Tuesday, when Mamdani became mayor of NY. Is it your only relationship with football? Mamdani is more than just a politician, former rapper and (now) elected mayor of the largest city in the United States. He is also a self-confessed soccer fan. He himself has said that he made his first steps during his student years and his Arsenal fandom. “My uncle is a fan. I had magnets of the Invincibles (the team that won the 2003-2004 First League without losing a game) on my fridge. I loved David Seaman, Sylvain Wiltord, all of them… I have gone to many Arsenal games, many with my uncle. It has been a very important part of my life,” explained recently to The New York Times. Beyond the stands or the fields, Mamdani has known how to combine his football hobby with his political side, which has led him to launch a campaign to demand that FIFA not marginalize New Yorkers in the World that will host North America in 2026 and that includes the MetLife Stadium between its stages. Their proposal is that the organizers reserve part of the tickets for residents and also offer them a discount. The objective: that enjoying the championship is not an unattainable luxury for New York families. Images | Real Oviedo and Wikipedia In Xataka | In 2017 Liverpool signed a star footballer. Without knowing it, he had found the solution to racism in sports

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