$13.9 million invested in 43 startups over 9 months
The first nine months of this year have seen nearly $14 million being invested in 43 startups, of which $5 million was invested in 16 early-stage startups in the last three months
Investments in the entrepreneurial ecosystem around the world have ignited the digital transformation in traditional industry. This percentage increases the contribution of startups to digital transformation in all sectors and at every stage from health to banking, from tourism to production. According to third-quarter data by Startups.Watch, $5 million was invested in 16 early-stage startups. Thus, 43 startups received a total of $13.9 million in the early stage in nine months. These figures do not include government incentives and investments in Turkish startups that moved their headquarters abroad. The most striking deal in the third quarter was Mutlubiev, which received $2.1 million from İş Bank Maxis and Collective Spark.
Marketplace and cloud-based software startups attracted attention among the early-stage investments in the third quarter. Cloud-based software services provide agile and flexible solutions for transformation projects in traditional institutions and sectors. Instead of paying a high price for software and hardware investments, companies prefer to direct their IT investments with the "pay as you go" logic of startups.
Commenting on the situation in the Turkish market, Startups.Watch founder Serkan Ünsal said the rate of startups that received investments over $ 1 million in the last quarter in the U.K. stood at 64%. "It is important to increase the number of startups receiving more than $1 million in investments in addition to early-stage startups in Turkey. We need to increase the number of A-series and above," he added.
Other notable investments in the third quarter of 2019 were financial technologies, robotics, efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI) startups. Three startups that received investments in the last quarter and their investors took the stage in the event. These startups pointed out that they drew an exit plan toward them.
Speaking at the opening of the event, Galata Business Angels (GBA) and Endeavor Turkey Chairman Emre Kurttepeli talked about his experience in undertaking global business and investing in human resources. "Finding angel investment in early-stage startups in Turkey is no problem. However, we need larger global startups other than early-stage startups," Kurttepeli said. "The number and diversity of A-series and B-series startups must be increased. Startups must prepare themselves for the world stage. In this way, they give their teams a wide vision. Then they will have the luxury of doing business independent of the economic situation at home. Startups with a clear exit plan have a good chance of getting investment."
Kurttepeli pointed to the successful exit and asset sales of game startups in 2019, stressing that the number of successful game studios should increase.
$123 million for startups based abroad
In the Startups.Watch event, the figures for Turkish startups that received investments not only in Turkey but also abroad and the Turkish investors were included. While Turkish startups abroad managed to receive $123 million in investment in the first nine months, Turkish investors invested $6 million in foreign startups. It is also noteworthy that the startups in Turkey could not reach this figure in total.
Turkey’s female entrepreneur rate ranks second in Europe
The female entrepreneur figures announced at the Startups.Watch event were compared with European countries and the U.S. According to the comparison, Turkey ranks second in Europe with 14% of female entrepreneurs, ahead of the U.S. Spain takes the first place with a 16% share in Europe, while Turkey shares the second place with Sweden. It is a promising development that Turkey is at the top of the assessment in which the rate of female founders is measured in technology startups. In the first nine months of 2019, startups such as Armut.com, Adalet Hanım, ComPay, Manibux, and Paym.es, which were founded by women, attracted attention with their investments.
Institutions learn to work with entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs' ability to act quickly and be agile and flexible can make it easier for major corporations to adapt to changing competitive conditions. However, most institutions do not know how to work in harmony with entrepreneurs. Core strategy, which provides consultancy services on corporate innovation and entrepreneurship, announced the third quarter 2019 venture investments. In the first nine months of this year, corporations invested $4.9 million and achieved approximately one-third of the total startups. In the first nine months, TT Ventures, Türk Telekom's corporate venture capital fund, invested in MentalUp and continued to support early-stage startups through the Pilot acceleration program. Albaraka Fintek venture capital fund attracted attention with its investment in Kronnika and Tam Entegre startups in the third quarter. The Mutlubiev investment of İş Bank’s venture capital investment fund Maxis was one of the outstanding investments in the third quarter as well.
NGN, one of the largest data center investments in Turkey, aims to meet the needs of startups with its entrepreneur-friendly domestic cloud solution. "We value entrepreneurs' ability to act flexibly and with agility while integrating different business models into organizations," Beyazıt Öztürk, NGN Data Center and Cloud Solutions Director, said. "We offer a six-month free trial in our domestic cloud where we offer an hourly payment model to all startups. We aim to shorten the integration process with the support they will find whenever they need it."
Instant monitoring at construction sites with Wipelot
The "internet of things" (IoT) makes it easier for the next generation of startups to keep track of work efficiency and safety even at construction sites. Okyanus Teknoloji, which provides services in the fields of the industrial IoT as the cornerstone of Industry 4.0, real-time people, equipment and environment monitoring, mobile technologies and communication technologies, make the invisible visible by facilitating instant equipment and worker tracking at construction sites with real-time geo-location system Wipelot. Wipelot follows many different factors such as the location of equipment, work machines and fixtures, how much is in use, the location of personnel, and the efficiency and safety of the working environment, thus providing energy saving, quality, speed, efficiency, and turnover increase in the construction sector. Wipelot systems, which also offer solutions to prevent possible accidents at construction sites, enable you to work safely in all conditions and areas.
The construction sector is a highly complex business. While the location of personnel and equipment is constantly searched within the construction site, the identification of the number of equipment is regularly required. In the sector which requires to know if there is sufficient and appropriate equipment to move on to the next stage, employees need a long time to answer these questions. Finding the location of a person, vehicle or equipment in dozens of floors is a waste of time. Workers spend most of their time looking for each other and used fixtures and equipment. Developed in accordance with industrial and harsh working environments, Wipelot real-time positioning system facilitates the processes at the construction site by easily determining the room or floor of the personnel and the equipment and whether the equipment is suitable for use. Wipelot makes it easy to find out where the lost equipment is, making the most efficient use of the equipment and helping to complete the construction without delay.
New door to global competition
Continuing to support technology entrepreneurs, İşbank takes its Workup startups to San Francisco to bring global companies and investors together. The first leg of the overseas program held in cooperation with İşbank's innovation center in Silicon Valley, Maxitech and the U.S. Market Access Center (USMAC) was realized in Turkey. Workup's fifth term startups and previous term graduates were trained and mentored by USMAC's expert mentors for three days on effective sales, presentation and business development techniques in the U.S. At the end of the training, three startups were selected to participate in the U.S. leg of the program. Selected startups, Agrovisio, PCI Checklist and Holonext, will travel to San Francisco at the end of October to meet global companies and investors to expand their business to international markets.
3 startups selected
The Workup Entrepreneurship Program, which always supports the opening of the startups to international markets in addition to the value created in Turkey, has once again highlighted the global vision of the program by implementing a personalized overseas program in which the selected startups can develop business on their own. Enrolled in the Workup Entrepreneurship Program, which has been carried out under the structure of Kolektif House since May 2017, startups are offered offices and mentoring, as well as cooperation support in investment and business development for six months. To date, 67 startups have been selected with a total of 40 graduates in the first four semesters, while Workup's fifth term, which will end in December, continues with 10 startups. Agrovisio monitors the soil, crop and climate by using satellite imagery thanks to the artificial intelligence-based agricultural technology it developed, providing analysis of the current situation of agricultural areas. PCI Checklist is a platform that performs real-time process control of PCI-DSS authorization, a mandatory certification for businesses that process, store and transport card data, and aims to create value for e-commerce sites, financial technology (fintech) startups, banks and payment infrastructure organizations. Holonext is a cloud-based augmented reality (AR) content development platform that helps companies and individual users easily design and view AR experiences and view them across different platforms.
Marketplace and cloud-based software startups attracted attention among the early-stage investments in the third quarter. Cloud-based software services provide agile and flexible solutions for transformation projects in traditional institutions and sectors. Instead of paying a high price for software and hardware investments, companies prefer to direct their IT investments with the "pay as you go" logic of startups.
Commenting on the situation in the Turkish market, Startups.Watch founder Serkan Ünsal said the rate of startups that received investments over $ 1 million in the last quarter in the U.K. stood at 64%. "It is important to increase the number of startups receiving more than $1 million in investments in addition to early-stage startups in Turkey. We need to increase the number of A-series and above," he added.
Other notable investments in the third quarter of 2019 were financial technologies, robotics, efficiency and artificial intelligence (AI) startups. Three startups that received investments in the last quarter and their investors took the stage in the event. These startups pointed out that they drew an exit plan toward them.
Speaking at the opening of the event, Galata Business Angels (GBA) and Endeavor Turkey Chairman Emre Kurttepeli talked about his experience in undertaking global business and investing in human resources. "Finding angel investment in early-stage startups in Turkey is no problem. However, we need larger global startups other than early-stage startups," Kurttepeli said. "The number and diversity of A-series and B-series startups must be increased. Startups must prepare themselves for the world stage. In this way, they give their teams a wide vision. Then they will have the luxury of doing business independent of the economic situation at home. Startups with a clear exit plan have a good chance of getting investment."
Kurttepeli pointed to the successful exit and asset sales of game startups in 2019, stressing that the number of successful game studios should increase.
$123 million for startups based abroad
In the Startups.Watch event, the figures for Turkish startups that received investments not only in Turkey but also abroad and the Turkish investors were included. While Turkish startups abroad managed to receive $123 million in investment in the first nine months, Turkish investors invested $6 million in foreign startups. It is also noteworthy that the startups in Turkey could not reach this figure in total.
Turkey’s female entrepreneur rate ranks second in Europe
The female entrepreneur figures announced at the Startups.Watch event were compared with European countries and the U.S. According to the comparison, Turkey ranks second in Europe with 14% of female entrepreneurs, ahead of the U.S. Spain takes the first place with a 16% share in Europe, while Turkey shares the second place with Sweden. It is a promising development that Turkey is at the top of the assessment in which the rate of female founders is measured in technology startups. In the first nine months of 2019, startups such as Armut.com, Adalet Hanım, ComPay, Manibux, and Paym.es, which were founded by women, attracted attention with their investments.
Institutions learn to work with entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs' ability to act quickly and be agile and flexible can make it easier for major corporations to adapt to changing competitive conditions. However, most institutions do not know how to work in harmony with entrepreneurs. Core strategy, which provides consultancy services on corporate innovation and entrepreneurship, announced the third quarter 2019 venture investments. In the first nine months of this year, corporations invested $4.9 million and achieved approximately one-third of the total startups. In the first nine months, TT Ventures, Türk Telekom's corporate venture capital fund, invested in MentalUp and continued to support early-stage startups through the Pilot acceleration program. Albaraka Fintek venture capital fund attracted attention with its investment in Kronnika and Tam Entegre startups in the third quarter. The Mutlubiev investment of İş Bank’s venture capital investment fund Maxis was one of the outstanding investments in the third quarter as well.
NGN, one of the largest data center investments in Turkey, aims to meet the needs of startups with its entrepreneur-friendly domestic cloud solution. "We value entrepreneurs' ability to act flexibly and with agility while integrating different business models into organizations," Beyazıt Öztürk, NGN Data Center and Cloud Solutions Director, said. "We offer a six-month free trial in our domestic cloud where we offer an hourly payment model to all startups. We aim to shorten the integration process with the support they will find whenever they need it."
Instant monitoring at construction sites with Wipelot
The "internet of things" (IoT) makes it easier for the next generation of startups to keep track of work efficiency and safety even at construction sites. Okyanus Teknoloji, which provides services in the fields of the industrial IoT as the cornerstone of Industry 4.0, real-time people, equipment and environment monitoring, mobile technologies and communication technologies, make the invisible visible by facilitating instant equipment and worker tracking at construction sites with real-time geo-location system Wipelot. Wipelot follows many different factors such as the location of equipment, work machines and fixtures, how much is in use, the location of personnel, and the efficiency and safety of the working environment, thus providing energy saving, quality, speed, efficiency, and turnover increase in the construction sector. Wipelot systems, which also offer solutions to prevent possible accidents at construction sites, enable you to work safely in all conditions and areas.
The construction sector is a highly complex business. While the location of personnel and equipment is constantly searched within the construction site, the identification of the number of equipment is regularly required. In the sector which requires to know if there is sufficient and appropriate equipment to move on to the next stage, employees need a long time to answer these questions. Finding the location of a person, vehicle or equipment in dozens of floors is a waste of time. Workers spend most of their time looking for each other and used fixtures and equipment. Developed in accordance with industrial and harsh working environments, Wipelot real-time positioning system facilitates the processes at the construction site by easily determining the room or floor of the personnel and the equipment and whether the equipment is suitable for use. Wipelot makes it easy to find out where the lost equipment is, making the most efficient use of the equipment and helping to complete the construction without delay.
New door to global competition
Continuing to support technology entrepreneurs, İşbank takes its Workup startups to San Francisco to bring global companies and investors together. The first leg of the overseas program held in cooperation with İşbank's innovation center in Silicon Valley, Maxitech and the U.S. Market Access Center (USMAC) was realized in Turkey. Workup's fifth term startups and previous term graduates were trained and mentored by USMAC's expert mentors for three days on effective sales, presentation and business development techniques in the U.S. At the end of the training, three startups were selected to participate in the U.S. leg of the program. Selected startups, Agrovisio, PCI Checklist and Holonext, will travel to San Francisco at the end of October to meet global companies and investors to expand their business to international markets.
3 startups selected
The Workup Entrepreneurship Program, which always supports the opening of the startups to international markets in addition to the value created in Turkey, has once again highlighted the global vision of the program by implementing a personalized overseas program in which the selected startups can develop business on their own. Enrolled in the Workup Entrepreneurship Program, which has been carried out under the structure of Kolektif House since May 2017, startups are offered offices and mentoring, as well as cooperation support in investment and business development for six months. To date, 67 startups have been selected with a total of 40 graduates in the first four semesters, while Workup's fifth term, which will end in December, continues with 10 startups. Agrovisio monitors the soil, crop and climate by using satellite imagery thanks to the artificial intelligence-based agricultural technology it developed, providing analysis of the current situation of agricultural areas. PCI Checklist is a platform that performs real-time process control of PCI-DSS authorization, a mandatory certification for businesses that process, store and transport card data, and aims to create value for e-commerce sites, financial technology (fintech) startups, banks and payment infrastructure organizations. Holonext is a cloud-based augmented reality (AR) content development platform that helps companies and individual users easily design and view AR experiences and view them across different platforms.
Last Update: December 20, 2019 01:02