Vodafone fuels the next generation of innovators

Tomorrow Street – a joint venture between Vodafone Group and Luxembourg’s national technology incubator, Technoport – accelerates leading-edge technology by partnering with young, innovative companies and helping them grow across Vodafone’s global ecosystem. Furthermore, it aims to identify future suppliers that can support Vodafone’s digital transformation and deliver new propositions to help the business and its customers.

Tomorrow Street also supports Luxembourg’s fast-growing technology sector by attracting exciting entrepreneurs and talent to the country.

This month, technology scaleups from around the world headed to London to be part of Scaleup X 2023.

Scaleup X 2023

Scaleup X is Tomorrow Street’s new programme designed to connect young tech companies with key decision makers from Vodafone so they can collaborate on new business opportunities.

The London-based event was attended by 20 scaleup companies from the programme and 8 from Tomorrow Street’s own portfolio, creating a mini exhibition for Vodafone leaders to explore and interact with each of the companies.

There was a packed agenda, with guest speakers including Vodafone’s Chief Technology Officer Scott Petty and Interim Vodafone Business Chief Executive Officer Giorgio Migliarina. During the event they joined other leaders from the business including Group Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic, Vodafone Business Marketing & Communications Director Amanda Jobbins, as well as teams from around the Vodafone business, to engage with attendees and seek out scaleups that could support Vodafone’s own growth, simplicity and customer priorities.

From cybersecurity to data analytics, there was a range of innovative technology solutions on show, many of them leveraging the power of artificial intelligence (AI).

A number of scaleups were focused on helping businesses protect themselves from the ever-developing cyber-security landscape, including some which specialised in protecting company devices. While others are using AI to make sense of business data and to bring actionable insights to organisations.

One scaleup that attended the event showcased its ‘Chat GPT for business’ model. This business provides an enterprise search engine, enhanced with Generative AI, to respond to queries and generate relevant business insights using internal and external data sources.

When it comes to the customer experience, a range of emerging platforms are identifying customer pain points and supporting self-service processing, as well as better training for customer care staff.

Scott Petty, Chief Technology Officer at Vodafone Group, said, “As a champion for SMEs, entrepreneurs, and innovators around the world, we are delighted to be involved in Tomorrow Street’s Scaleup X event.We recognise the importance of working with young companies on emerging technologies and were pleased to have the opportunity to meet with a number of them during event. Many of the solutions presented support our focus on customers, simplicity, growth and I’m excited to see how we can work alongside them.”

Kenneth Graham, CEO at Tomorrow Street said, “It was fantastic to feel the energy of our scaleups, corporate partners and colleagues at Vodafone exploring potential opportunities with innovative new tech. It’s going to be an exciting few weeks ahead as discussions continue and new partnerships are formed.”

Quantexa and Gulliver are already on Tomorrow Street’s portfolio as scaleup partners and have been benefitting from Vodafone’s expertise to enhance their business growth.

Danilo D’Aversa, General Manager at Gulliver said, “Attending the Scaleup X event alongside numerous scale-ups worldwide was an incredible experience. Being a Tomorrow Street partner is invaluable for expanding our business from Italy to all the countries within the Vodafone network.”

Alastair Masson, Head of Telco EMEA at Quantexa said, “The Scaleup X event provided Quantexa with further opportunity to create value with Vodafone. The events laid a superb stage for us to connect and collaborate with partners, sponsors and senior Vodafone executives. It’s a triple-win for Vodafone, Quantexa and Vodafone’s customers.”