Yoyo, a mobile payment app and marketing engine based in London, has picked up two out of three awards at Pitch@Palace, an initiative run by The Duke Of York in support of early-stage entrepreneurship. The platform took gold in the “Best Pitch” and “Most Disruptive Idea” categories, and silver for the project with “The Most Commercial Potential”.
Held at St. James Palace, the event provided a forum for 12 selected startups to pitch their business in front of His Royal Highness the Duke of York, as well as Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie and Jonathan Ross. The evening was also attended by over 200 entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Founded in 2013 by Alain Falys (founder of OB10, ex Visa), Dave Nicholson (Founder of Zopa, ex Egg) and Michael Rolph (ex PayPal, Barclayscard and First Data), Yoyo is already being used by one of the world’s top universities, where it has grown its user base to more than 4,000 people in just eight weeks. The platform is already out-performing contactless cards across the campus, and will be rolled out at a further four major universities and at high street retailers’ over the next two months.
Having entered the Pitch@Palace initiative as a part of Firestartr.co accelerator, Yoyo, alongside the other 36 successful startups, attended a startup bootcamp at Google Campus last week, working on the pitch and getting advice from the most prominent industry experts.