Press Releases

January 30, 2020

WAYRA UK APPOINTS NEW COUNTRY MANAGER TO LEAD NEW STRATEGY AND START-UPS

Wayra - Telefónica's open innovation hub – has just hired the entrepreneur Bruno Moraes, as its new Country Manager for the UK market. Bruno will be responsible to manage a portfolio of 193 start-ups valued over $1bn and to scale new start-ups that are coming on board in 2020, alongside a pivotal shift in the strategy for how Wayra finds the best start-ups.

Latest

January 14, 2020

WAYRA’S INTELLIGENT MOBILITY START-UPS HAVE RAISED OVER $250M

Wayra UK - Telefónica's global open innovation arm – celebrates the end of the 3rd Intelligent Mobility Accelerator with a Demo Day event. The Intelligent Mobility (IM) Accelerator is a partnership between Connected Places Catapult (UK Government funded) and Wayra UK, with support from Stagecoach, Hyundai and Amey (part of the Ferrovial Group). To date, it has generated 24 commercial pilots for the 28 start-ups that have gone through three cohorts. All start-ups combined have raised over $250M in external investment.

January 13, 2020

START-UP OCYAN CLOSES DEAL WITH TELEFÓNICA TO PROVIDE BLOCKCHAIN INFRASTRUCTURE

Telefónica and Ocyan have just closed a commercial deal in which Ocyan becomes the infrastructure layer for Telefónica’s TrustOS, enabling the Telecom giant to deploy a blockchain solution in any cloud or data centre provider, for any underlying blockchain protocol, in a very agile and scalable way.

November 27, 2019

THE AI & BLOCKCHAIN ACCELERATOR OPENS APPLICATIONS FOR 2020 PROGRAMME

The AI & Blockchain Accelerator, at the University of Edinburgh’s world-leading Bayes Centre, calls start-ups and entrepreneurs to apply for the 2020 programme. Applications can be submitted online (www.wayra.co.uk) from 3rd December to 15th January.

November 25, 2019

80% OF WAYRA’S CURRENT COHORT ARE WORKING WITH TELEFÓNICA ON POTENTIAL MULTI-MILLION POUND DEALS

Wayra UK - Telefónica's global innovation arm – proves to be a successful global business developer for its portfolio of companies. 80% of start- ups from the 2019 UK’s cohort are currently doing trials or have signed contracts with Telefónica, generating new revenues streams for these start-ups and taking advantage of Telefónica’s 346m customers around the world. Across the entire portfolio, there has been 136 trials and/or contracts which have generated $18m in revenues for Wayra UK’s portfolio of start-ups.

September 30, 2019

WAYRA CALLS START-UPS FOR THE LONDON 2020 PROGRAMME

Wayra UK – Telefónica's global innovation arm – calls start-ups and entrepreneurs to register for its London 2020 programme. Applications can be submitted online on Wayra’s website (www.wayra.co.uk) from 3rd October until 3rd November.

September 19, 2019

WAYRA UK: BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

Over October the United Kingdom is celebrating Black History Month and Wayra UK – Telefónica (O2 in the UK)'s global innovation arm– will be hosting a series of trailblazers from some of the world’s most admired and valuable companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Barclays, Bloomberg and UBS. All events will be hosted by Gary Stewart, Director, Wayra UK, who is on the Daily Mirror Black Powerlist 2019.