Santander fintech fund joins Cyanogen Series C round

Santander InnoVentures has joined Android operating system outfit Cynanogen’s $80m Series C funding round alongside fellow investors Twitter, Telefónica and Rupert Murdoch.

Cyanogen has raised $80m in Series C funding through a range of investors including Twitter Ventures, Qualcomm Incorporated, Telefónica Ventures, Smartfren Telecom, Index Ventures, Access Industries, Rupert Murdoch and Vivi Nevo.

Existing investors Benchmark, Andressen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, and China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd have also participated in the round.

Cyanogen Inc., headquartered in Palo Alto, California, develops the commercial mobile operating system, Cyanogen OS, and backs the largest open-source Android community distribution, CyanogenMod. The company builds an open OS platform that enables a more open, level playing field for the mobile developer ecosystem around core services most frequently used by consumers.

Santander intends to work with Cyanogen to find ways to drive commercial adoption of terminals with Cyanogen OS in its core markets in Europe and Latin America, the bank said. Cyanogen’s implementation already allows its partners to distribute smartphones with Cyanogen OS tuned and optimised for each device.

There are over 50 million users of CyanogenMod, and Cyanogen OS is expected to ship on mobile devices in major markets around the world.

Santander’s fintech venture fund invested $5 million in mobile payment and loyalty provider MyCheck last week.

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