Türkiye’s technological capabilities, supported by the ongoing reform process and customized incentives, have altogether created a thriving startup ecosystem over the years. The Turkish startup ecosystem has all the key stakeholders in place, ranging from business angel networks to venture capital (VC) and private equity funds on the funding side, and accelerators to technoparks, mentors, and government agencies on the supporting side.
- Türkiye has a population of 84.7 million people, with a median age of 33.1, making it the EU’s largest youth pool.
- Türkiye boasts one of the largest talent pools in Europe and the MENA region with more than 1 million university graduates per year, including over 80,000 engineering and engineering trade graduates.
- Türkiye’s growing population is digitally connected and active, as evidenced by the fact that it is the 6th largest market for Instagram, 7th largest market for Twitter, 9th largest market for TikTok, 12th largest market for YouTube, 14th largest market for LinkedIn, and the 14th largest market for Facebook globally. Furthermore, Türkiye is the 7th largest market for mobile apps, based on the total number of app downloads. With these figures, Türkiye proves to be an ideal production and testing ground for technology developers.
- Between 2020-2022, the Turkish startup ecosystem raised two decacorns, Trendyol, and Getir, as well as three unicorns, Peak Games, Dream Games, and Insider.
- Early-stage investments in Türkiye have increased significantly in recent years, with 2021 going down in history as a record year with USD 1.6 billion worth of investment and 2022 maintaining the same trend in seed, early, and later VC stages. In terms of startup investments, Türkiye ranked 10th in Europe and the 3rd in the MENA region.
- Grocery delivery, gaming, AI, SaaS, and MarTech fared ahead as the leading verticals in terms of capital raising, while FinTech, SaaS, AI, gaming, and MarTech led in respect of the count of deals in 2021.
- Following a noteworthy year, gaming deals continued their uptrend with a new record of USD 362 million in 2022. With this figure, Türkiye ranked the world’s 4th most invested country in gaming startups, trailing only the US, Singapore, and the UK.
- In the grocery delivery vertical, Getir received USD 768 million of investment in its Series-E funding round in 2022, becoming a decacorn with a USD 11.8 billion valuation.
- Among European cities for early-stage investments, Istanbul ranked 6th after London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and Munich in 2022. Additionally, in terms of gaming investments, Istanbul ranked 2nd following London in the same year.
- Regarding VC fundraising in Türkiye, 40 new funds raised USD 358 million in 2022, bringing the total fundraising amount in the past five years to USD 1.4 billion.
- Türkiye expects more unicorns to emerge in the foreseeable future with the backing of a mature startup ecosystem, a large and young population with high-tech penetration rates, an affordable and competent developer pool, an increasing investment trend in diverse industries, and successful exits to global companies.
- International financial investors are much welcome to invest in the Turkish startup ecosystem, either directly or through funds to benefit from the next successful exit rounds.
