Spain's Telefonica signs up Chinese incubator
Wayra, Spanish telecom giant Telefonica’s accelerator initiative, has signed an agreement with Virtue Inno Valley (VIV), an incubator program backed by China’s Tsinghua University.
"We are very happy to extend our global footprint to China through our alliance with VIV, which provides us with immediate access to early stage innovations emerging from the largest TMT market in the world with 1.4 billion population and already more than 800 million mobile internet users," Gonzalo Martin-Villa, CEO of Wayra, said in a statement.
Founded in 2011, Wayra is part of Telefonica's innovation platform with a focus on investing in internet and the new information and communication technology (ICTs). It has a global network of 14 Wayra academies in 13 countries, concentrated in Latin America and Europe.
"In the past years, we have consolidated operations in Europe and Latin America, and extending the Wayra network to Asia is a great step for us to create something remarkable in the start-up industry," Martin-Villa said.
The agreement allows selected Chinese start-ups in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector accelerated by VIV to share Wayra's international resources, including mentors, partnership and investors. Meanwhile, successful products could get access to more than 320 million customers of Telefonica in 24 countries, according to Li Zhu, VIV's executive director.
The Chinese TMT incubator was launched by Tsinghua University, Tsinghua Holdings Technology & Innovation (THTI) Holdings and Tsinghua Alumni Association of TMT, which are located in Beijing Zhong Guan Cun area.
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