Istanbul startup directory
Explore startups, investors, and ecosystem operators in Istanbul, Turkey.
Showing 21–40 of 52 Istanbul · Turkey
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Hepsiburada
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.
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İbrahim Kırcova
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.
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IGEXX — Istanbul Global E-Export Summit (September 2026)
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.
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İlke Toptaş
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.
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Insider
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.
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Istanbul Blockchain Week 2026
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.
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Istanbul Fintech Week 2026
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.
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iyzico
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.
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Jack Yu
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.
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Joseph Cleetus
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.
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Levent Erden
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.
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Luis Ferreira
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.
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Marmara Fair Organization
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.
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Mehmet Ali Kılıçkaya
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.
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Mobidictum Conference 2026
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.
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Ömer Barbaros Yiş
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.
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Ömer Gürkan
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.
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Peak Games
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.
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Re-Pie Asset Management
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.
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Revo 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.
