American Express Opens $100M Start-Up Fund

SILICON VALLEY, Calif. (MainStreet) -- American Express (AXP) plans to start with word on the street to figure out which start-ups are worthy of its investment for innovations in digital commerce.

The company could invest up to $100 million, says Harshul Sanghi, who was appointed a managing partner of the card company's Enterprise Growth Group in September.

American Express plans to invest as much as $100 million in early stage companies dedicated to digital commerce.

The multiyear initiative looks to invest in companies improving on the company's loyalty and reward programs, point-of-sale technology in management and fee-based services, security and fraud detection, cloud-based services and data analysis.

American Express plans to contribute minority investments to these companies. It does not have plans to acquire the start-ups, a spokeswoman says.

The initiative will be managed by Sanghi, who is already developing partnerships with technology and venture communities. He was in a similar role at Motorola(MOT) . American Express formed the group last year to focus on expanding its traditional card and travel businesses further into alternative mobile and online payments.