Wayra UnLtd UK’s Social Ventures Accelerator Names Its First Cohort Of 10 Startups

Wayra has not one but two startup bootcamps in London: its main U.K.-based accelerator, which currently has a full cohort of 17 startups working through their programs. Plus another, smaller accelerator — operated in partnership with social entrepreneur funding organisation UnLtd, and funded jointly with the U.K. government’s Social Incubator Fund — that’s specifically for startups who are tackling social problems.

Today the 10 startups that will be joining the Wayra UnLtd academy in September have been named (see full list below). Each of the startups will get an average of £40,000 in funding, plus all the usual mentoring and business expertise activity to help them develop and grow their ventures. The cohort will be housed in the same building as the main Wayra Academy group, in a new purpose built space on a different floor.

The 10 startups will spend eight months in the Academy in all, with Wayra commit to providing two investor days, one half way through and one at the end of the programme, so they can pitch for external funding in front of around 150 VCs and investors. There’s also the chance that Wayra owner Telefonica may choose to make an investment.

The winners were chosen by Wayra UnLtd’s panel of judges from a shortlist of 20 selected to take part in a two-day pitching process — whittled down from “hundreds” of applications received for the programme in all.

Here’s the full list of winners:

  • Discoverables:  Helping young people improve their soft skills to get into meaningful jobs through online tools
  • DNAdigest:   Enabling open access secure data sharing for the benefit of genomics research. Securing the data – sharing the knowledge
  • Karisma Kidz:   Improving emotional intelligence in a fun and engaging way thats accessible and appealing to children
  • Know Maths:   Embracing technology to make one-to-one learning available to more students than ever before
  • Lingoing:   An innovative online system that provides an easy, straightforward and value for money way to source Language Services Professionals
  • MySupportAssistant:   Matching people with care and support needs with people who can provide it
  • Provenance:  An online platform for transparency, helping people buy things from real people and places through a union of open data with e-commerce
  • Skin Analytics:   Improving healthcare by turning smartphones into data collection devices and giving GPs more information to aid diagnosis
  • StudentFunder:  By making it safer and easier to invest in people, StudentFunder improves access to education employment and enterprise
  • The DoNation:   A social tool to encourage behaviour change, building a nation of Doers through #DonateByDoing & #DoGood4Biz