Telefonica brings its Wayra start-up initiative to Ireland

TELEFONICA, THE parent of mobile operator O2, will today launch its Wayra accelerator programme for technology start-ups in Dublin.

The Wayra programme was first launched in Latin America, it spread to Europe and is now active in nine countries.

Start-ups in the programme gain access to financing, support and expertise to get their projects off the ground.

The process is the same in each country. A call for projects is put out, with a window of about two months for entrepreneurs to submit their ideas to Wayra. Of the projects received, 30 are selected to go forward for “Wayra week”, culminating in a 10-minute elevator pitch to an independent jury.

The 10 successful projects are given six months in a co-working space where they can use all the tools available to them to transform their idea into a fully formed company. Each of the academies is kitted out the same, regardless of its location.

When the six months are up, Telefonica will continue to support the projects that it considers have the most potential.

Telefonica takes a non-controlling 10 per cent stake in the companies and has the right of first refusal on the products and services that come out of the projects.

The initiative received 7,000 projects in its first year of operation, much more than global director Gonzalo Martin-Villa expected.

When Wayra opened its academy in Barcelona, the initiative was nine months old and had already attracted interest from about 6,000 projects.

“We never dreamt we were going to get this much,” Martin-Villa said.

When the call for projects in Britain closed, more than 1,000 had been received.

“The first thing people ask is when we talk about Wayra is ‘why Telefonica is doing this? What are you pursuing, what are your objectives?’,” he said. “First of all, it’s a matter of talent. We started the Wayra initiative in Latin America and we knew that in that region there was a lot of talent, but that talent didn’t get opportunities, financing. The projects those talented people were developing, they didn’t have the correct opportunities.”

Keeping talent within countries, contributing to economic growth, is a major driver for the projects, as is nurturing innovation, Martin-Villa says, with Telefonica recognising that not all innovation can come from within the company.There is the knock-on benefit for the telco of having these innovative projects at their fingertips.

“There is a lot of innovation out there. We need to nurture it, we need to understand what business models people are working on, we need to understand what kind of language they’re speaking,” he adds.

“The products and services that are being developed by these projects right now are the products and services Telefonica is going to have to send to its customers in a couple of years.”

Another motivator for Wayra is social responsibility, with Telefonica looking to stimulate growth and employment in the countries in which it operates. “This is good news,” Martin-Villa says. “It is helpful to entrepreneurs; we’re giving opportunities to others.”