Wayra marks 15 years with an Investors Day for 250 guests in Madrid

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Wayra, Telefónica's corporate venture arm, brought close to 250 investors, start-ups and corporates to the Espacio Fundación Telefónica in Madrid on Thursday for its fifteenth Investors Day. The event shared a date with Wayra's own fifteenth birthday and ran under the slogan "Europe's Next Advantage". That is a fairly confident thing to call a day of panels, and the panels mostly asked whether it is true.

Opening the day, chief executive Andrés Saborido described collaboration between start-ups, investors and corporates as "one of the most effective ways to turn innovation into business opportunities". The main panel, "Can Europe own its technology future?", put Carlos Moreira of 33N, Guillaume d'Audiffret of Noteus Partners, Alberto Gómez of Adara Ventures and Wayra's Paloma Castellano on stage to discuss whether Europe has the capital, founders and rules to build its own technology rather than buying it from American and Chinese suppliers. A space session followed with Jaume Sanpera of Sateliot and Francisco Boira of Kreios Space, moderated by Wayra's Agustín Moro.

Five portfolio companies then pitched: Whalebone and Red Sift in cybersecurity, Quantum Bridge in post-quantum cryptography, Omniloy with AI for sectors such as health, and telli with agentic AI for customer service. Most of them work in areas where Telefónica is itself a customer, which is a tidy arrangement for a corporate investor: the portfolio and the shopping list overlap.