Telecoms investment funds had a boom in 2014-16 which has not been repeated since. But 2021 saw signs of an uptick with telcos in emerging markets creating investment funds.
The heyday of telecoms funds was 2014-2016, when incumbents in the sector launched a total of 77 investment arms in just three years. In 2016 more than $102bn in funding was raised collectively (though the figure includes SoftBank’s first multi-billion Vision Fund and is thus considerably skewed).
Things have been quieter since then, but 2021 saw a resurgence in spending, with total estimated capital at $30.93m. This was distorted by the size of the second Vision Fund, but there are…
