Telefonica turns to Israel’s high-tech to boost consumer portfolio

By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Spain’s Telefonica, Europe’s third-largest telecoms firm, goals to extend investments in Israel’s high-tech sector this 12 months, together with in e-health and different consumer-facing enterprise, a senior official mentioned.

Luisa Rubio, who heads Telefonica’s innovation arm WayraX, has already made one funding in Israel – Upword, which makes use of synthetic intelligence (AI) to create sooner, extra environment friendly summaries from notes.

She mentioned WayraX, which invests small quantities in early-stage funding, is contemplating investing in two extra Israeli startups, with a choice anticipated within the coming weeks.

“We now have already executed the primary one and hopefully, on the finish of the 12 months we can have one other 4 or 5 corporations coming from Israel,” Rubio mentioned in an interview with Reuters after visiting the nation final week. “Israel might be one in every of our most related markets by way of executing new investments.”

WayraX has taken stakes in 12 corporations because it started on the finish of 2020 and has a plan to achieve 20 by the top of 2022, she mentioned. Wayra, which is a decade previous, has invested in some 800 corporations, and Telfonica Ventures buys into extra mature growth-stage corporations.

Since its investments are early stage, WayraX solely invests as much as 250,000 euros ($263,500.00) per spherical.

“The worth we deliver to the desk will not be monetary, it is being a strategic associate to assist these entrepreneurs increase their operations throughout our footprint – and to do enterprise probably with Telefonica sooner or later,” Rubio mentioned.

Digital well being and the flexibility of shoppers to hook up with medical doctors on-line is a spotlight for Telefonica and a significant space for investments in Israel, though Rubio additionally cited client actions corresponding to shopping for groceries.

“We all know we now have to maneuver actually quick (on funding choices) as a result of I’ve by no means seen an ecosystem as dynamic as Israel,” Rubio mentioned.

She famous that Wayra was additionally seeking to enhance investments in Miami as a hub to bridge Europe with Spanish-speaking international locations in Latin America.

($1 = 0.9488 euros)

(Reporting by Steven Scheer; modifying by Barbara Lewis)