Wayra UK hosts its fourth Corporation Acceleration Summit
On Thursday 20th September 2018, Wayra UK hosted its fourth Corporate Acceleration Summit (#CorpAccel) in London examining whether anything has changed in the corporate-startups space. Are corporates getting better at working with startups? Do most corporate-start-up programmes go on to fail? Is it time for a refresh?
Over the years, #CorpAccel has brought together an exclusive club of nearly 100 corporates and 300 attendees, which include some of the UK’s most exciting entrepreneurs, heads of innovation, venture capital investors and corporate venturing leads for controversial, but honest panels, keynotes, and networking sessions.
Opened by Gary Stewart, Director at Wayra UK; Mariano de Beer, Chief Commercial Digital Officer, Telefonica, gave the keynote address and Jo Bertram, Chief Digital and Strategy Officer, O2 spoke about the 5 success factors for Corporate Acceleration. The Head of Partnerships and London Programme Manager elaborated on how startups and partners could get involved with Wayra and panel debates on the day discussed topics including:
What do Corporates and VCs really think of each other?
Moderator: Melinda Nicci, CEO, Baby2Body
Bindi Karia, Innovation Expert, and Advisor
Clara Lindh Bergendorff, Investor, Firstminute Capital
Miles Kirby, Managing Partner, AV8 VC
Itxaso del Palacio, Investor (formerly M12)
Is Corporate Acceleration an oxymoron?
Moderator: Jon Bradford, Founding Partner, Motive Partners
Alexandra Gilbert, COO, LMarks
Andy Shannon, Partner, Startupbootcamp
Eamonn Carey, Managing Director, Techstars
Gary Stewart, Director, Wayra UK
Imogen Wethered, Co-Founder & CEO, Qudini
Beyond Pilots
Moderator: Rahul Power, CEO, Redsift
Alyson Edmunds, Head of Innovation, O2
Jeremy Bassett, CEO, Co-Cubed
Dr Mike Short CBE, Chief Scientific Advisor, DIT
Sandeep Raithatha, Head of Open Innovation, BT
Wayra UK 7th Anniversary
The Corporate Acceleration Summit coincided with Wayra UK’s 7th Anniversary. Over the last seven years, Wayra UK has invested and supported 180 companies to help scale the global startup ecosystem. It has invested cash and business development support throughout the world, and have created seven hubs that offer startups unique access to heads of state, corporate leaders, investors, serial entrepreneurs and even royalty. The accelerator has 108 trials or contracts with Telefónica and the total valuation of Wayra UK companies is $804m.
About Wayra
Wayra is the most global, connected and technological open innovation hub in the world. It currently operates in 10 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom and Venezuela.
Through Telefónica, Wyara offers unparalleled access to 350 million customers and clients in multiple countries. We are a unique and effective interface between entrepreneurs on the one hand and our network of corporates, governments and other partners in the 17 countries in which Telefónica operates.
Our mission is clear, to connect innovators with Telefónica and generate joint business opportunities. We are the interface between Telefónica and entrepreneurial ecosystems across the globe because innovation makes good business sense.
For further information visit https://www.wayra.co.uk/
