The rules of the game are not written yet: A peak inside Europe's newest startup accelerator

BusinessZone.co.uk editor Dan Marin reports on a recent trip to Madrid where he experienced first hand an innovative new scheme supporting entrepreneurs.

It's very rare that I get out of bed before the sun comes up but that happened last Thursday when I joined a delegation of UK-based entrepreneurs, investors and journalists to travel to Madrid to experience first hand an innovative attempt by one of Europe's biggest companies to support entrepreneurs.

The reason we travelled to Spain was to visit the Madrid branch of Wayra, a network of business incubators which each house 10 digital startups and provide funding and access to high profile mentors and investors. The project has been launched by Telefónica, the parent company of telecoms firm O2.

There are several business accelerators and incubators around the world but what makes Wayra different is the fact that it's backed by such a large brand. Each of the small companies are given up to $70,000 in funding (for which Telefónica takes 10% equity) and access to the company's 300m customers, 23m of which are in the UK. 

What is also unique about the initiative is the speed with which Wayra has been set up.

Businesses the size of Telefónica are not known for being nimble and flexible but this scheme has gone from idea to the opening of nine centres in eight countries in less than a year. So far, the concentration has mainly been on Latin America but the scheme is now moving to Europe with Madrid and Barcelona the first launches. 

Wayra Madrid has an impressive base in Telefónica's former Spanish HQ (image on the right).

The actual floor that Wayra is based on however couldn't be more different to the exterior of the building. Wide open spaces, hard surfaces, walls on which the entrepreneurs can write and table tennis tables are the order of the day. 

After being treated to paella and Spanish omlette, me and the other delegates settled down for presentations from the various people involved in the scheme.

The most impressive speech came from José María Álvarez-Pallete López, the chairman and CEO of Telefónica Europe, who in an emotional address outlined his vision for Wayra. The scheme's tagline is "the rules of the game are not written yet", he said, and he explained how his team was able to set it up in a company which has traditionally been "an elephant that was hard to move". He claimed that under company rules even the table tennis table should have been approved by senior management but they managed to sneak it in!

I'm a journalist so I'm automatically sceptical when big corporate companies say they're looking to support small business owners. However, this one does seem different. 

It's a real risk for Telefónica and even though they take a stake in what could be the next Google, Twitter or Facebook, they have no exclusivity and there's nothing to stop the entrepreneurs selling out to Orange or T-Mobile.

And it's not all going to be plain sailing. Latin America and Europe are very different places and, as pointed out by former Dragons' Den entrepreneur Doug Richard who attended the event, Telefónica needs to be careful that it embraces the local situation in each city in which it operates.

Simon Devonshire, the former head of O2 UK's small business operations and a man I've interviewed before, has been tasked with rolling out Wayra across Europe and London is one of the cities on his mind.

Like Richard implied, Devonshire and his team face a tough job in a city like London. It is already home to hundreds of schemes which support entrepreneurs and the danger is that Wayra could get lost among them.

But the people I met in Madrid seem hugely passionate about the project and Álvarez-Pallete López himself admitted that parts of it might not work; refreshing honesty from a big business executive.

Devonshire is also a good choice as outside of his work at O2, he has started and invested in several small businesses. 

Wayra is certainly one to watch and as many of my fellow delegates said during our time in Madrid, if all big companies made similar attempts at supporting entrepreneurs, we might just get out of the economic mess that the world is currently experiencing.