Imperial College London becomes the first UK university to support mobile payments across campus.

Yoyo, a mobile payments app, is now being used across the university’s 32 on-campus retail outlets, serving over 20,000 students and staff. The company was co-founded in 2013 by Imperial Innovations, the tech transfer office at the university, with a £250,000 ($380,000) investment.

Since its founding, Yoyo has raised a total of $1.3m from angel investors and Firestartr, and including the initial investment by Imperial Innovations. The company is based in the Clerkenwell area of London, the location of technology cluster Silicon Roundabout. 

Yoyo bills itself as a marketing platform for modern retailers, powered by mobile payments. It provides retailers with a platform for customer engagement and a set of tools to better target their customers with relevant rewards, offers and incentives. The company participated in Pitch@Palace, in early April 2014, an initiative run by the Duke of York in support of early-stage entrepreneurship. Yoyo won two out of three awards: “best pitch” and “most innovative idea”.

The integration of the app into campus life has been successful so far, and the university is currently in the process of introducing Yoyo fast-track tills. The company’s next milestone is the role-out  across more of London’s and the UK’s universities before the new academic year. It is also talking with a number of high street retailers.

Michael Rolph, founder, said: “Yoyo is the only app combining payment and loyalty to make mobile relevant for in-store retail. With Yoyo, retailers sell more, waste less and provide a great customer experience.”