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Tomorrow Street is innovation accelerato powerful growth en start-ups. CEO/Direc tells us 2
Written by Anna McMahon •
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s Vodafone’s global or, providing a highly ngine for late-stage ctor Warrick Cramer s more. Produced by Danielle Harris
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It has been a year since Tomorrow Street was launc in a bid to support the next generation of strategic supp for Vodafone and its partne
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Olivier Minaire/Silicon
nspired by CEO/Director Warrick Cramer’s entrepreneurial background, the company is committed to providing a platform to help late-stage start-ups change the world, as Warrick explained, “The next wave of innovation is going to come from small and more agile companies, so corporate businesses
Warrick Cramer talking at this year’s Arch Summit
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need to find a way to collaborate effectively with small companies. This is where Tomorrow Street can assist.” With many companies focusing on early-stage start-ups, helping microbusinesses to grow and develop, what makes Tomorrow Street stand out from the crowd is its emphasis on late-stage start-ups. Warrick said, “We decided to look a little later into the life of the start-up. They have real products and real customers, but they haven’t got any scale. We can help with this scalability aspect. Vodafone operates over 26 different countries with over 50 partner markets, so we have the ability to scale smaller companies across our global footprint, allowing them to grow very quickly and attach them to real customers. I think that’s what is really beneficial about our model.”
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“We are dealing with late-stage start-ups that we bring into Luxembourg, sit with them, and pull all the resources that we need from within Vodafone” Warrick Cramer, CEO/Director
And by leveraging its position at the heart of Vodafone’s international network in Luxembourg, start-ups actually have the opportunity to rub shoulders with c-level executives. Warrick explained, “Anyone who wants to do a deal with Vodafone has to come into Luxembourg, so it’s a magnet for suppliers. The most important thing for a start-up is those connections. How do they access big corporations and partner with
them? When c-level executives come in from large companies and talk and interact with the start-ups, it’s a really good opportunity to showcase ideas to key decision makers outside Vodafone. Likewise, a lot of c-levels don’t get access to small companies. This way, they get to interact with them, which is quite valuable.” With a special focus on Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and 7
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Olivier Minaire/Silicon
“We go through a huge amount of criteria in terms of looking at the organisations and really understanding them. If we feel we can work with them, we bring them in to Tomorrow Street, and help them as a partner to grow their business� Warrick Cramer, CEO/Director
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Cybersecurity, Tomorrow Street’s start-ups come from all around the world. Warrick said, “There’s nowhere in the world that we don’t look for them. We find them from a combination of word of mouth, events, corporate partners, investors, and social media. Because we are so focused, we have to throw the net
We help to industrialise the business to make it so solid that it can be pushed out anywhere across the globe. We really roll up our sleeves and get hands-on. We look at every component of the business and work out exactly what they need to do. We try to give them visibility, and they get to use the Vodafone brand by
“It is a combination of inter Vodafone and external peo are pulled together. Everyo something different to the out quite wide, as sometimes these companies are hidden and difficult to find. The more noise we make within Tomorrow Street, the better. It helps because people can learn about what we are doing and how we differentiate ourselves from other programmes that exist. We are very unique in what we do.” So, what makes Tomorrow Street so unique? Warrick answered, “We are dealing with late-stage start-ups that we bring into Luxembourg, sit with them, and pull all the resources that we need from within Vodafone. 10
saying that they are partnering with Tomorrow Street.” To become a Tomorrow Street startup, however, there is a rigorous selection process. An internal team must first validate the business, carrying out heavy due diligence, before ensuring that it is a strategic fit. Warrick said, “We go through a huge amount of criteria in terms of looking at the organisations and really understanding them. If we feel we can work with them, we bring them in to Tomorrow Street, and help them as a partner to grow their business.”
rnal ople that one brings team� Warrick Cramer, CEO/Director
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The team behind Tomorrow Street is both passionate and experienced, with expertise across a broad range of corporate, entrepreneurial and technical domains. Warrick added, “It is a combination of internal Vodafone and external people that are pulled together. Everyone brings something different to the team. There is a wide range of skills and we all complement each other.”
Olivier Minaire/Silicon
The year 2018 saw the first Arch Summit event in May – the result of much hard work by the enthusiastic team at Tomorrow Street. Warrick explained, “The event was all about bridging the gap between startups and corporate businesses. It is always a struggle to find key decision makers for start-ups, so I decided to host our own event. I invited c-level executives from Vodafone’s supplier base, over 200 start-ups from over 30 countries, over 60 corporate exhibitors, and around 4,500 people attended the event. What was a great success for us was that startups were really dealing with key decision makers, right at the top of their various organisations. The overall enthusiasm was fantastic. Hearing the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg promoting and encouraging startups, and making it easy for them 12
“The Arch bridging th and corpo
to work within Luxembourg, was great. Generally speaking, for a first event, you don’t get that kind of attendance. The amount of people flying in to Luxembourg and staying here for three or four days showed that there is a real need for this type of activity.” A follow-up event is being planned for 3rd and 4th April 2019, pulling in both c-level executives as speakers and a host of Vodafone executives from
Summit was all about he gap between start-ups orate businesses” Warrick Cramer, CEO/Director all the different markets. Warrick added, “Our first event was such a great success, not just for the startups, but also for our suppliers and Vodafone internally. You get a good sense when you see all these young companies – what they are working on, what risks they are taking, and how they plan to shape and change the world. It really gives fantastic insights. You can learn so much from them. Next year’s Arch Summit will be even bigger and better.”
There were three competitions that were open to start-ups over the course of the last Arch Summit. One was a disruptive competition – an open competition for start-ups disrupting their own respective industries (a startup called Verv, which offers its own smart home solution, took the prize of 150,000 euros) – while the other competitions focused on social impact and female empowerment. Warrick said, “The competitions created a great buzz, and I was really pleased 13
with the quality of the pitches. What we saw was a high level of maturity of the companies that were coming through.” Tomorrow Street has also recently launched its own YouTube channel, Tomorrow Street TV, discussing the real-life challenges faced by both corporate organisations and
how to get into different countries, understanding what innovations they are working on to help companies at a local level to grow and take them to the next stage. There’s never a dull moment!” We look forward to seeing what the next 12 months will bring for the talented team at Tomorrow Street,
“We have already expande Tomorrow Street into 27 co In just 12 months, we have very quickly globally” start-ups. Warrick said, “We are going to showcase a lot of the new technologies, and discuss what our suppliers are working on, which is really exciting. We have already expanded Tomorrow Street into 27 countries. In just 12 months, we have grown very quickly globally. We are now working on programmes on
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with exciting plans already in the pipeline for Arch Summit 2019... Watch this space, I say! To view Tomorrow Street TV, simply follow this link
ed countries. e grown Warrick Cramer, CEO/Director
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info@tomorrowstreet.co www.tomorrowstreet.co 15 Rue Edward Steichen, L-2540 Luxembourg