Entrepreneurs seem to have no need to look further than technology startups, whose success has been a true inspiration for many.
PayPal could be cited as the best example, given the size of the impact, it has created in the ecosystem. The financial technology giant has proved to be such a factor that it led to the creation of “PayPal Mafia,” one of the most influential “clubs” in Silicon Valley.
The term refers to a group of founders and early investors in PayPal who, after the company was sold to eBay in 2002, went on to set up multiple vital startups and ultimately became some of the valley’s most prolific investors.
Peak Games can be said to have had a similar impact in Turkey since it achieved unicorn status as the country’s first-ever billion-dollar company in 2020.
It has somewhat transformed Turkey’s startup scene, shedding a light on the country’s emerging tech promise for global investors and spurring young entrepreneurs to find their own companies.
Some of its investors in the early stage are the same people who had played a key role in setting up Trendyol, one of Turkey’s largest online marketplaces.
Peak became Turkey’s first unicorn after its acquisition by U.S.-based gaming giant Zynga in a $1.8 billion deal in mid-2020.
Peak features a story of how a successful startup turned into a school, leading to the birth of multiple new ventures, a fact that has been visually reiterated by the ecosystem monitor, startups.watch. It proved to be such a factor that 80 people whose paths crossed with Peak went on to set up 65 different startups.
Twenty-eight of these are engaged in gaming, in addition to 25 startups in different verticals.
The influence proved to affect not only various industries but also helped Turkey to secure itself a top spot in Europe. Peak has played an important role in leading Turkey past its peers to become the most invested country in Europe in the first half of 2022 when it comes to investments in gaming ventures.
An all-time high of $333 million of capital poured into 13 Turkish gaming ventures from January through June, according to data from the startups.watch.
Early investors had built on multiple ventures even before Peak became a unicorn.
Founders of Dream Games, a mobile gaming startup that turned out to be Turkey’s fastest unicorn ever last year, are all Peak Games alumni. The company last year reached a billion-dollar valuation in less than two years.
Dream Games had made a name for itself with a record seed investment and was set up a year before Peak achieved the status of a billion-dollar company. It earned fame after launching its first game, Royal Match.
Dream Games proved that Peak investment was far from a coincidence, as it did not take long before its valuation hit $2.75 billion in January of this year.
Hakan Baş and Rina Onur Şirinoğlu have been among former Peak executives and partners who have made name for themselves both as entrepreneurs and investors in the ecosystem.
A co-founder at Peak and a general partner at 500 Istanbul venture capital fund, Şirinoğlu became a co-founder and CEO of Spyke Games, a company that raised $55 million in a seed round in January this year. It marks the largest seed round to date for a startup from Turkey.
The casual gaming startup made a name for itself after it launched its first game, Royal Riches.
As for Baş, a co-founder at Peak, he managed to secure a $7 million investment as a founder and CEO of Ace Games.
Startups.watch founding partner Serkan Ünsal stressed the immense interest that emerged after they shared a graph showing all the initiatives started by the early Peak employees.
“The term ‘PayPal Mafia,’ which is used to illustrate the most contagious success in the U.S., comes forth as ‘Peak Mafia’ in Turkey,” Ünsal said.
“The graph, which everyone talks about a lot, shows how the self-confidence of entrepreneurs who have gained unicorn and decacorn experience has increased. My advice to entrepreneurs is: Look at the company you work for as a school, leave your comfort zone when the time comes and move the bar to a higher level,” he noted.
“Let me even go further. we can say that unicorns in two to three years will be created by those that part from Trendyol, Getir and Insider.”
The entrepreneurship ecosystem continues to grow parallel to the ever-growing mobile Internet investments and fiber infrastructure investments.
Peak has had games developed for mobile operators at its inception. A significant part of gaming initiatives is gaining success thanks to mobile games.
High-speed Internet infrastructure has become very important for startups developing mobile games. The ventures have reached a level where they are more valuable than the telecom companies developing the infrastructure they use.
The venture capital firm TT Ventures of Türk Telekom is among the investors in the ecosystem. One of Turkey’s leading information and communication technologies companies, Türk Telekom is also running an acceleration program PILOT.
In short, institutions are expanding their presence and are adding pace to their investments. According to startups.watch data, one out of every four startups have secured funding from institutional venture capital funds.
