Last night I spent the evening at Wayra
in London one of Telefonica's thirteen academies set up to offer an alternative
to Silicon Valley and to unearth the disruptive digital diamonds of the
day.
Telefonica provide early stage investment to digital
start-ups together with office space in their purpose built, 'state-of-the-art'
Academy. Throw in the community, access and exposure to a network of mentors
and you've got early site of some game changing offerings.
Not everything you
touch is gold
With the growing number of technology incubators, Google's
is just around the corner, Tech city a stone's throw away and the various
catapults and campuses it is becoming an increasingly challenging choice for
the start-up to determine the best option. They offer an excellent vehicle to
fast track you and your start-up but as with all partner selection it’s always
worthwhile doing your homework so your choice best fits your objectives and
direction of travel.
After the razzmatazz intro which felt more like the
unveiling of a premiership footballer, with the host calling out similar stats
to those concluded in the recent Connected
World report, we got into the pitches of the current cohort. They represented a wide variety of high
growth industry sectors including security, quantified self, e-learning, music
and health.
With the now ubiquitous pechakuchesque format the 17
companies had 5 minutes to cover all the bases and give us their ask.
Show me the money!
Show me something!
The current intake had only been together under the Wayra
banner for less than 12 weeks and were generating revenue and closing deals. I
was surprised by the number that didn't offer a working demo to bring the
product or service to life. This will be
on the roadmap but if you’re asking for cash from a potential client or investor,
be it for a smartphone app or for an enterprise solution the default starting
position has to be a demo that brings the offering to life.
Gems in the gaps
If I had to pick a star of the future my shout outs are; dattch’s dating service for lesbian and bisexual
and bi-curious women, surprisingly there wasn't a dedicated offering for this
group before, and ensygnia's Onescan
mobile payments offering.
