Foreign and domestic investors interest in Turkish startups

Pioneers Investors – Foreign and domestic investors continue to show a keen interest in the Turkish startup ecosystem, proven by the data pertaining to investment deals made from January through April.

Some 161 angel investors, corporate venture capital investors and venture capital companies made investments in the four-month period of this year, compared to 73 a year ago, according to data from startup monitor (startups.watch).

Gaming, financial technologies and cloud technologies secured the largest share of the funding.

Serkan Ünsal, the founder of (startups.watch), said investor appetite increased especially after U.S.-based gaming giant Zynga acquired two Turkish gaming companies last year.

It purchased Peak for $1.8 billion (TL 15.08 billion), making it a unicorn, and Rollic for $168 million.

The coronavirus pandemic did not prevent record investments in Turkish startups.

A total of $139 million was invested in 165 startups throughout 2020, according to the monitor’s data.

Investments catapulted in the first quarter of 2021 with deals worth $509 million made with 62 startups, the data showed.

“Many white-collar angel investors who want to earn high returns and seek alternative investment tools have started to become investors. If we look statistically, 73 different investors have invested in startups in Turkey in the first four months of 2020, and this number has increased to 161 in the first four months of 2021,” Ünsal said, underlining that investor diversity increased by 120% in one year.

These numbers do not include individual investors involved in crowdfunding, he noted. “We can say that with the widespread use of crowdfunding, white-collar investors will mostly become investors. This means that the options for entrepreneurs will increase significantly. Of course, this does not mean that every startup seeking investment will find investment. Again, startups with high growth potential will receive funding. Therefore, it is very important to find the growth formula. We can say that many sources of financing are now waiting for startups that succeed in growing.”