Startup Ocyan closes deal with TeLefonica to provide blockchain infrastructure

London,  January 13, 2020

• The deal comes together with an investment from QVentures and Wayra UK.
• It will enable Telefonica to be one of the leaders in the enterprise blockchain market.
• Ocyan is a startup from the AI & Blockchain 2019 accelerator, which currently has open applications for 2020 cohort.
• To date, 136 trials and contracts have been signed between Wayra UK’s Startups and Telefonica, generating $18 million in revenue for UK startups.

Telefónica and Ocyan have just closed a commercial deal in which Ocyan becomes the infrastructure layer for Telefónica’s TrustOS, enabling the Telecom giant to deploy a blockchain solution in any cloud or data centre provider, for any underlying blockchain protocol, in a very agile and scalable way.

The deal comes together with a pre-seed investment round where Ocyan received capital lead by QVentures and joined by Wayra UK (Telefónica’s global open innovation arm). According to Brian Hatton, Partner at QVentures: “We are very excited to be leading Ocyan’s funding round and joining the board of a company revolutionising the enterprise market for blockchain applications”.

Ocyan is one of the start-ups being part of the 2019’s AI & Blockchain Accelerator, based at the Bayes Centre, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The programme is a collaboration between Wayra UK and the University of Edinburgh, it is also supported by Scottish Enterprise and sponsored by Cisco. Ocyan is an end-to-end cloud operating system for enterprise blockchain and P2P networks and it was awarded “Start-up of the year” by Horizon Event in 2019.

This agreement will make Telefónica one of the leaders in the enterprise blockchain market, by being able to target large enterprises to SMEs use cases in multiple industries. The future plans are to expand the TrustOS offering with more APIs and applications for IoT, tracing & tracking, ID, settlements, tokenization and other future uses.

Since joining the AI & Blockchain programme in 2019, Ocyan expanded its business to the UK, Spain, Germany and Italy. Applications for the 2020 programme are open until 15th January and they can be submitted online on the website www.wayra.co.uk

Getting start-ups to work together with Telefónica is one of Wayra’s main differentiation. To date, over 300 start-ups have been through one of Wayra UK’s programmes and 136 trials and contracts have been signed between the start-ups and Telefónica, generating over $18M in revenue for the portfolio of start-ups.

ABOUT WAYRA

At Wayra UK, we democratise entrepreneurship. We do this by providing unparalleled access to networks and capital that turn start-ups into scale-ups while ensuring that our cohorts reflect the diversity of the UK and, indeed, the world. Our 190 portfolio companies have a combined value of near $1bn and have had 136 trials or contracts with Telefónica, generating $18m in revenue for our portfolio of start-ups.

Add to this a further 7 programmes that have supported 94 start-ups in 6 cities throughout the UK, and it becomes clear why it is said that Wayra UK is Great Britain’s only truly national innovation programme. We bring world-class start-ups not only to Telefónica globally and O2 locally but also to our network of partners, including Cisco, Novartis, Ferrovial, Hyundai, Connected Places Catapult, Network Rail and the British Government via the GCHQ and NCSC. In each case, our primary aim is to find new sources of revenue and/or innovation.

We are part of the larger Wayra network. At Wayra, we scale start-ups. We offer start-ups access not only to investment but also to business development opportunities with some of the world’s largest companies, including our parent company, Telefónica. Wayra runs 7 hubs in Europe and Latin America that reach the entrepreneurial ecosystems of 10 countries. This makes us one of the world’s most global, connected and technological innovation hubs.

ABOUT TELEFóNICA

Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world by market capitalization and number of customers with a comprehensive offering and quality of connectivity that is delivered over world class fixed, mobile and broadband networks. As a growing company, it prides itself on providing a differential experience based both onits corporate values and a public position that defends customer interests.

The company has a significant presence with over 346 million accesses around the world. Telefónica has a strong presence in Spain, Europe and Latin America, where the company focuses an important part of its growth strategy.

Telefónica is a 100% listed company and its shares are traded on the Spanish Stock Market and those in New York and Lima.

ABOUT OCYAN

Ocyan is a cloud-managed solution that provides all the required infrastructure, automation, monitoring, integrations and analytics, beyond just a Blockchain as a Service, to give organizations the ability to bridge the visibility, easy to integrate and scale across their cloud architectures to any DLT/Blockchain network.  

Because modern applications are distributed with business operations and data spread across multiple managed services and APIs, automating the required DLT nodes is not enough. Ocyan provides the ability to scale instantly and gain deeper insights into application’s interaction with any DLT integration.

We partner with integrators and consultancies that have already engaged with F. I . and other related industries and license out our platform. Our partners are incentivized as this creates a new revenue stream for them.

ABOUT QVENTURES

QVenturesis a network of Family Offices, Successful Entrepreneurs and Super Angels investing in Venture Capital. With a community of over 1,000 vetted and qualified investors from 21 different countries, QVentures curates investments for its network primarily focused on stages Pre-Seed to Series A. In addition to the Direct Investment, QVentures manages a Pre-Seed / Seed Fund on behalf of its investors.

To join the network, if you qualify as a sophisticated investor, apply on www.qventures.co