Capital names Wayra Germany the Best Innovation Lab

June 16, 2021
2 min read
Wayra Best Innovation Lab 2021 Image
Business Magazine Capital names Wayra Germany as the best innovation lab which provides a clear evidence about the success of the venture client model.

Capital names Wayra Germany the Best Innovation Lab


Munich, 17 June 2021 - The business magazine Capital has named Wayra Germany the best Digital Innovation Unit. After the Innovation Hub of the telecommunications group Telefónica was not even represented in the ranking at the beginning of the study, it has already climbed to third and second place in the last two years. Now the Munich hub has reached the top.


Florian Bogenschütz, Managing Director at Wayra Germany: "We are incredibly happy about this award because it shows how much we had developed since our founding nine years ago. The whole team has always gone the extra mile to connect Telefónica with the best start-ups.This is how we manage to solve the challenges of the business units within Telefónica with the most innovative products on the market. The first place in the Capital ranking shows us that the venture-client-model is the best way to bring start-ups together with established companies." 


In the study "Corporations on the Trail of Start-ups 2021", experts from Infront Consulting and Capital examined the results that Digital Innovation Units Labs bring to German corporations and medium-sized companies. Overall, the results are diverse and show both the progress and obstacles of innovation labs in Germany: While the best units are now generating 8-figure revenues with their ventures, some units do not get beyond the prototyping phases. The study leaders' recommendation from the results is: "The blueprints are there.  What is needed now is courage, strategy, but also persistence to emerge as a winner in a world that is digitalising ever faster."


Wayra Germany scored above average in the evaluation criteria "Growth & Potential", "Speed" as well as "Commercial Success". "The result of the study makes it clear that we as Wayra today really stand as a blueprint for how innovation hubs can function," says Bogenschütz. "Our recipe for success here is an approach based on clear principles. We only look for innovations that are actually relevant to Telefónica's business units." 


5G & Diversity: Focus on the challenges of tomorrow


And Wayra Germany also knows where Telefónica is headed in the future. The foundations for the future were laid at the beginning of the year with the transformation of the Innovation Hub into a 5G-enabled Tech Lab, where start-ups can develop business models, products and services based on the new technology.


"The fact that we are in first place in the ranking makes us proud," says Bogenschütz. However, we still have a lot to do, and the award motivates us to push forward with the many issues that need to be addressed. For example, we are still at the beginning of diversity and overcoming a preponderance of male-led start-ups.  We want our portfolio to become more diverse, and we want to encourage women much more to found start-ups -simply because we think ahead and know that, for example, the success rates of mixed teams are higher. If we succeed in this, I am convinced that we will continue to be at the forefront in the years to come."

Wayra Capital Award Article Image


The study was published for the fifth time in a row. A total of 49 units were examined. More information on the study is available at ttps://www.infront-consulting.com/.

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About Wayra Germany

Wayra Germany is the Open Innovation Hub of telecommunications group Telefónica. As an early-stage investment arm, Wayra Germany scales technology-oriented start-ups. The focus is on the venture client model, which enables start-ups from the fields of Internet of Things, data analytics, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence to win Telefónica as customers for products and solutions - while offering unique access to the infrastructure of the global telecommunications company. Telefónica, in turn, benefits from the innovative ideas of the start-ups, on the one hand, to improve processes within the Telefónica Group and, on the other hand, to develop new products for Telefónica brands. Wayra Germany was recently named Germany's best digital lab of a corporate group by Infront Consulting and the business magazine Capital.
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