Wayra UK

We democratise entrepreneurship by providing unparalleled access to networks and capital, turning start-ups into scale-ups, while ensuring that our start-ups reflect the UK diversity. We have already accelerated almost 300 start-ups and invested in 193 of them, which nowadays have a combined value of over $1bn and have had 137 trials or contracts with Telefónica, generating $18.5m in revenue for our portfolio of start-ups.

We scale start-ups by giving them access not only to investment but also to business development opportunities with some of the world’s largest companies, including our parent company, Telefónica. We are part of a larger group which runs 7 hubs in Europe and Latin America, that reach the entrepreneurial ecosystems of 10 countries. This makes Wayra one of the world’s most global, connected and technological innovation hubs.

Apart from our 193 portfolio companies, we have supported other 94 start-ups in 6 cities throughout the UK. We bring world-class start-ups not only to Telefónica globally and to O2 locally, but also to our network of partners, including Cisco, Novartis, Ferrovial, Hyundai, Connected Places Catapult and the British Government, via the GCHQ and NCSC. In each case, our primary aim is to find new sources of revenue and/or innovation for the start-ups.