Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital 500 Istanbul is an Istanbul-based early-stage venture capital fund established in 2016 by Enis Hulli and Rina Onur Şirinoğlu in partnership with 500 Global, operating as a distinct fund entity focused on Turkey and Emerging Europe. The fund raised a €30M Fund II and later evolved into 500 Emerging Europe, targeting a €70M raise for the broader CEE and Baltics region. Its portfolio of 37+ companies includes three unicorns — Insider, BillionToOne, and Carbon Health — with portfolio companies collectively generating over $600M in annual revenue and attracting $1.1B in follow-on funding. The fund backs pre-seed to seed-stage startups with typical cheques from €200K to €3M.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Founder and CEO of Selia Fullcommerce, an e-commerce and fullcommerce services company. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital Bek Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm backing exceptional founders with roots in Europe, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey. Founded in 2013 as the Earlybird Digital East Fund and rebranded to Bek Ventures in late 2024, the firm manages roughly $600 million across its funds, including a $250 million Fund III closed in 2024. Led by managing partner Cem Sertoglu and with offices in Istanbul, London, and New York, the Turkish-founded team has generated billions of dollars in returns over the past decade and is associated with one of the greatest venture investments in European history. Bek Ventures backs technical founders building global category leaders, with around half of its portfolio companies operating from the United States.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Managing Director at Arthaum Group, working across finance, technology and strategic advisory. She is an announced speaker at Eurasia Tech Week 2026 in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Fintech ecosystem providing AI-driven credit scoring, micro-credit, BNPL and investment services to consumers, plus B2B Banking-as-a-Service infrastructure for third parties.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event The second edition of Data Center Eurasia is an international exhibition and conference at the Istanbul Expo Center covering data centre infrastructure, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, energy efficiency and cooling, AI-powered data management, DCIM and green energy. The inaugural 2025 event drew around 4,000 visitors from 39 countries, and the conference features panels from companies, public institutions, investors and academics.
Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital Diffusion Capital Partners (DCP) is Istanbul's leading deep-tech focused venture capital fund manager, with a team that began operations in 2007 and the fund formally established in 2015. DCP closed its first fund at €37M and launched a second fund targeting €35M, backing startups in BioTech, AgroTech, CleanTech, Robotics, Material Science, and Nanotechnology across Turkey and the broader region. The firm has made over 44 investments, primarily at Seed and early Series A stages with initial tickets typically below €500K. DCP's cumulative team experience spans over 70 years in high-tech sectors, offering portfolio companies business development, legal, and operational support alongside capital.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Dream Games is an Istanbul-based mobile gaming studio founded in 2019 by five industry veterans from Peak Games and Zynga — Soner Aydemir, Ikbal Namli, Eren Shea, Hasan Yilmaz, and Serdar Yilmaz — who decided to bet the studio's entire future on shipping a single, highly polished casual puzzle title rather than the portfolio approach favored by most publishers. That title, Royal Match, launched in 2021 and became one of the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, reportedly generating in the billions of dollars in annual in-app revenue and holding steady top-5 grossing positions on both iOS and Android across multiple major markets. The studio raised over USD 450 million from Index Ventures, Makers Fund, Balderton, and others at valuations above USD 2.75 billion, making it one of the most valuable private gaming companies in Europe. Dream Games is the clearest contemporary example of Turkish mobile-gaming craft scaling into a global consumer business while staying headquartered in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person CEO of Clickmelive, a live-commerce and digital sales technology company. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital Esas Ventures is the venture capital arm of Esas Holding, Turkey's largest family-owned investment group backed by the Şevket Sabancı family, founders of the Sabancı Holding conglomerate. Founded in 2018 and operating from Istanbul with a London presence, the fund has built a portfolio of 38+ companies including four unicorns, with Getir, Deel, and Misfits Market among its most notable exits and holdings. The firm invests primarily at Seed and Series A stages in B2B SaaS, marketplaces, and consumer tech, with a global mandate spanning Turkey, the US, and Europe. Esas Ventures backed Insider through its $500M Series E led by General Atlantic, underscoring its capacity for large follow-on rounds.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Eurasia Tech Week (ETW) is a B2B technology exhibition and conference at the Istanbul Congress Center bringing together technology companies, investors and industry leaders across the Eurasian region. The programme spans telecommunications and connectivity, fintech and payments, consumer technology, data centre and cloud, and a deep-tech and startup zone, combined with keynote panels, B2B networking and startup pitch competitions.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Cloud-native, API-first core banking platform offering Financial Functions as a Service, with composable lending, deposits, payments and treasury modules for banks and financial institutions.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event One of the largest Google Developer Group events in Europe, drawing 1,500+ developers for sessions on Android, Flutter, cloud, and machine learning. Istanbul's massive developer community makes this a key hiring and community-building event for tech companies expanding to Turkey.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Organisator Istanbul-based exhibition organiser running Eurasia Tech Week (ETW) at the Istanbul Congress Center, a B2B technology exhibition and conference bringing together technology companies, investors and industry leaders across the Eurasian region, with tracks on connectivity, fintech, consumer tech, data centres and a deep-tech and startup zone.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Getir is an Istanbul-founded ultra-fast grocery and delivery platform that pioneered the 10-minute delivery model before it became a global phenomenon. Founded in 2015 by Nazim Salur, the company built a vertically integrated dark-store and courier network across Turkey before expanding to the UK, Germany, Netherlands, US, and other markets. At its peak Getir raised over $1.8 billion and reached a valuation above $11 billion, making it Turkey's most highly valued startup. The company later consolidated operations and refocused on profitable core markets, representing both the ambition and the operational challenges of the rapid delivery category in Europe.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Inaugural Türkiye edition of the global GITEX brand at Istanbul Expo Center, convening AI, cybersecurity, fintech, cloud, e-commerce, and data-center leaders, backed by Türkiye's Ministry of Industry & Technology and Dubai World Trade Centre.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Mobile gaming studio building hybrid-casual puzzle titles such as Magic Sort and Block Out, run via a multi-studio model. Surpassed 50M downloads across 200+ countries within two years.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Vice Chairman of Horoz Logistics, a major logistics and supply-chain operator supporting cross-border e-export. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Head of the E-Export, Digital Marketing and Disruptive Technologies Department at the Ministry of Trade of Türkiye. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person CEO of Ozon Global Türkiye, leading the marketplace's expansion for Turkish exporters. She is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Hepsiburada is one of Turkey's two largest e-commerce platforms, running a marketplace, first-party retail, express logistics, payments (HepsiPay), and advertising network serving tens of millions of monthly customers. Founded in 2000 by Hanzade Doğan Boyner, the company was the first major Turkish internet company to list on a US stock exchange when it IPO'd on Nasdaq (HEPS) in 2021 — a milestone that put Turkish consumer tech firmly on the radar of international public-market investors. Hepsiburada differentiates from Trendyol through its stronger positioning in 1P inventory, premium electronics, and its in-house payment infrastructure, and has built one of the largest same-day and next-day last-mile networks in the country. For the directory it is a key example of a Turkish consumer-internet story that reached public markets on its own, rather than through strategic acquisition.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Professor of Marketing at Yıldız Technical University and an authority on digital marketing and e-commerce in Türkiye. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event The second edition of the Istanbul Global E-Export Summit (IGEXX) is a cross-border digital commerce and e-export event at the Haliç Congress Center under the theme 'Beyond Borders'. It brings together e-commerce brands, online marketplaces, retailers, logistics and fulfilment providers and trade policymakers for keynotes, panels, B2B matchmaking and the IGEXX Awards.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Regional Director for Northern Europe at Meta, working on advertising and commerce solutions for businesses. She is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Insider is an Istanbul-founded marketing technology platform that uses AI to help brands deliver personalized, cross-channel customer experiences across web, mobile, email, messaging, and advertising touchpoints. The platform unifies customer data, predicts behavior, and automates individualized content delivery at scale. Insider has raised over $270 million, achieved unicorn status, and serves over 1,200 enterprise customers including Samsung, IKEA, and Estee Lauder across 28 countries. Co-founded in 2012 by Hande Cilingir, Insider is one of Turkey's most prominent B2B technology exports and a rare example of a martech unicorn built outside of Silicon Valley.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Fifth edition of Türkiye's flagship Web3 conference at Hilton Bomonti, gathering founders, developers, investors, and policymakers across DeFi, AI agents, real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins, and layer-2 scaling.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Sixth edition under the theme 'Smart, Embedded, and Tokenized', hosting the Web3 Summit, Digital Finance Summit, plus dedicated tracks on AI in Finance, TradeTech, Fintech for Businesses, and Women in Fintech.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup iyzico is an Istanbul-founded payment processor and merchant-acquiring platform that became Turkey's most visible fintech exit when it was acquired by Naspers-owned PayU in 2019 for around USD 165 million, at the time one of the largest fintech deals in Turkish history. Founded in 2013 by Barbaros Özbugutu and Tahsin Isin, iyzico built a developer-friendly API stack for accepting card payments, recurring billing, marketplace split payments, and fraud detection in the Turkish market, and layered a 'buy now, pay later' product on top that became a default installment option for thousands of Turkish e-commerce merchants. Even inside PayU, iyzico continues to operate as the Turkish merchant payments brand and has expanded into additional financial services, making it a canonical reference for how a CEE/MENA fintech can convert a tough local regulatory environment into a defensible commercial wedge.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Government Relations and Public Affairs lead at SHEIN, the global online fashion and lifestyle retailer. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Business Transformation Manager at Lulu Financial Holdings, focused on fintech transformation and cross-border payments. He is an announced speaker at Eurasia Tech Week 2026 in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Founder and academic at Next Academy, focused on marketing, branding and entrepreneurship education. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Global VP of Sales at DRYAD, driving commercial growth for technology products in international markets. He is an announced speaker at Eurasia Tech Week 2026 in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Organisator Istanbul-based exhibition company (Marmara Fuarcılık) that organises Data Center Eurasia, an international exhibition and conference at the Istanbul Expo Center covering data centre infrastructure, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, energy efficiency, AI-powered data management and green energy for the Eurasian market.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Director General of Exports at the Ministry of Trade of Türkiye, overseeing national export policy. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event The region's biggest game-industry conference, with 2,500+ attendees from 65+ countries at the Lütfi Kırdar Convention Center. Three stages plus a PC-gaming floor with an Indie Spot and a business-talks stage for investors, publishers, and VCs.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person CEO of Karaca International, leading global expansion for the Turkish homeware and lifestyle brand. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person General Secretary of ETID (the Turkish E-Commerce and Internet Association), supporting the country's digital-commerce ecosystem. He is an announced speaker at the IGEXX Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2026.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Peak Games was an Istanbul-based mobile gaming company that built globally successful casual puzzle games including Toon Blast and Toy Blast, which attracted hundreds of millions of downloads. The company was acquired by Zynga in 2020 for $1.8 billion, marking one of the largest exits in Turkish and European gaming history. Founded in 2010 by Sidar Sahin, Peak Games demonstrated that world-class mobile gaming studios could emerge from Turkey, and its success helped catalyze a wave of gaming entrepreneurship in Istanbul. The acquisition validated the depth of Turkish mobile gaming talent and design expertise on the global stage.
Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital Re-Pie is Turkey's first and largest alternative portfolio management company, established in 2015 under a Capital Markets Board licence and managing assets worth over 73.5 billion TL across 41 venture capital, 36 real estate, and 13 securities investment funds. Its venture capital arm backs Seed to Series A technology companies with cheques of $1M–$10M, with a notable portfolio including Getir, Hepsiburada, ikas, Modanisa, Colendi, and Ace Games. Re-Pie combines financial structuring expertise from its broader asset management platform with active strategic and operational support for portfolio companies. The firm is headquartered in Istanbul and is regulated by Turkey's CMB.
Istanbul, Turkey · Venture Capital Revo Capital is Turkey's largest technology-focused venture capital firm, founded in 2013 by Cenk Bayrakdar and Berkin Toktaş, having raised over $250M across three funds. Fund II closed at a landmark €90M in 2021 — oversubscribed with backing from IFC, EBRD, EIF, DEG, and the Turkish Development and Investment Bank — and Fund III reached an $86M first close in 2024 targeting over $100M. The firm has invested in 48 startups across Turkey, Eastern Europe, and the Baltics, achieving 18 exits and producing unicorns Getir and Builder.ai; portfolio companies have attracted $3.5B in follow-on capital between 2021 and 2025. Revo concentrates on early-stage B2B and B2C ventures in fintech, SaaS, cybersecurity, health tech, AI, and gaming.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Investment Director at Vinthera, focused on venture investment and technology growth across emerging markets. He is an announced speaker at Eurasia Tech Week 2026 in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Person Senior Vice President at Sygnum Bank leading bank-to-bank integration and enablement for digital-asset banking. He is an announced speaker at Eurasia Tech Week 2026 in Istanbul.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Payments and embedded finance platform offering payment processing, digital wallets, prepaid cards and FX for merchants and consumers across emerging markets. Serves 6.3M users and 25,000 merchants.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Spyke Games is an Istanbul-based mobile gaming studio that raised one of the largest seed rounds in European gaming history — roughly USD 55 million in 2022, led by Griffin Gaming Partners, Index Ventures, and Makers Fund — on the strength of its founding team's track record in casual and social gaming. The studio focuses on multiplayer social casual titles with deep live-ops loops and player-to-player interaction as a retention driver, and is part of the generation of second-wave Turkish mobile studios (alongside Dream Games and Spyke Labs alumni) trying to turn the country's engineering depth and low-cost production into a durable mobile entertainment cluster. For the directory, Spyke represents the next chapter of Turkish mobile gaming following the Peak Games / Zynga exit, and a data point on how extensively Turkish founders have now captured international venture appetite for casual gaming.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event International startup summit co-organized by the Turkish Presidency's Investment Office, bringing 5,000+ attendees from EMEA and Central Asia. Features the Take Off Pitch Contest with cash prizes, B2B matchmaking, and strong government support. Free for selected startups and investors.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Trendyol is Turkey's largest e-commerce platform, operating a marketplace, express delivery service, digital wallet, and food delivery product that together serve tens of millions of customers. Founded in 2010 by Demet Mutlu, the company attracted a major investment from Alibaba Group and has grown into one of the most valuable private technology companies in Europe with a valuation exceeding $16 billion. Trendyol processes millions of orders daily through its logistics infrastructure spanning hundreds of thousands of merchants. The platform is a dominant force in Turkish digital commerce and an increasingly important player in cross-border e-commerce across the broader region.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Organisator The Türkiye Exporters Assembly (Türkiye İhracatçılar Meclisi, TİM) is the umbrella body of Turkish exporters. It organises the Istanbul Global E-Export Summit (IGEXX), a cross-border digital commerce and e-export event in Istanbul, in collaboration with the Electronic Commerce Operators Association and the Ministry of Trade.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup No-code product adoption platform for building in-app onboarding flows, tooltips, walkthroughs, knowledge bases and surveys to reduce churn. Founded 2017; clients include Uber and UNICEF.
Istanbul, Turkey · Startup Image-recognition and AI platform for retail and CPG companies, automating shelf monitoring, planogram compliance, price tracking and competitive intelligence from in-store imagery.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event Webrazzi's anniversary edition fintech conference at Wyndham Grand Istanbul Levent, bringing together Turkish industry leaders to discuss digital banking, open banking, blockchain integration, AI-driven financial applications, and digital payments.
Istanbul, Turkey · Event The 20th-anniversary edition of Webrazzi Summit, Turkey's most influential technology and entrepreneurship conference, organized by tech media outlet Webrazzi at the Wyndham Grand Istanbul Levent on 21 October 2026. A single-day program of simultaneous panels, keynotes and workshops spanning e-commerce, fintech, AI and machine learning, digital marketing and sustainability, gathering founders, corporate innovators and investors.