Turkey has left behind another important milestone in the technology entrepreneurship scene. Within the scope of the Turcorn 100 Program, which aims to bring the country’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to the global competitive arena, the Ministry of Industry and Technology introduced 15 new technology startups that are candidates to prove their potential worldwide with high valuations.
15 new Turcorn candidates have been identified!
The Turcorn Candidates Promotion Meeting, held under the leadership of Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır, underlined Turkey’s technology-based growth and innovation-oriented development vision. These high-potential startups, called Turcorn, are preparing to play a critical role in the transformation of the national economy.
This program aims to strengthen Turkey’s technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem, increase the competitiveness of domestic enterprises in global markets and demonstrate the country’s capacity to create billion-dollar companies known as “unicorns”.
As Minister Kacır emphasized, Turkey has managed to produce 7 turcorns so far and its 2030 target is to train 100 thousand techno-entrepreneurs and ensure that more Turkish technology initiatives succeed on the world stage.
In line with this goal, the 15 new Turcorn candidates introduced by the Ministry include startups providing services in a wide range from artificial intelligence to digital services, cyber security, health technologies and financial technologies.
These candidates include innovative companies such as ACE Games, Albert Health Services, Apps Media Technologies (Appsamurai), ICT Buluş Bilişim (Bulutistan), Colendi Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Technology Services.
Turcorn 100 Program is not only limited to financial support to selected candidates, but also offers opportunities such as expanding into domestic and international markets, participating in acceleration programs and collaborating with world brand program stakeholders.
These supports will help startups scale quickly, reach a competitive position in global markets and move towards becoming a “Turcorn”. Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır said the following in his speech:
“We will continue to contribute to you and mobilize our resources for you and your success. We are working to grow Turkey’s technology startups with many practices and regulations, from our R&D incentives to our technopark practices, from TUBITAK supports to KOSGEB programs and venture capital funds. We are in a period when the wind of technological transformation blows stronger than ever before in history. Our individual lives, production and service sectors, public administration and social order are rapidly transforming with the technological revolution.
In 22 years, we have established an entrepreneurship ecosystem literally from scratch. We increased the number of our technoparks from 2 to 101, and the number of R&D and innovation initiatives in our technoparks from 56 to over 10 thousand. We enabled the establishment of 2 thousand 293 technology startups with the TÜBİTAK Bigg program.
We have introduced millions of young people to the technology development journey with the TEKNOFESTs we have organized since 2018. Thousands of technology startups are born every year from TEKNOFESTs, which have literally turned into startup factories. This is the ‘garage model’ unique to Turkey.
Together, we are building a more democratic model in the Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem that offers more equality of opportunity compared to the dynamics of other countries’ entrepreneurship ecosystems. This model in which we discover talents from all segments of society and offer them the opportunity to start their entrepreneurship journey; As long as he is successful, he will set an example to the world.
One of our primary goals is to create more technology startups and to enable thousands of young entrepreneurs to turn their dreams into projects and their projects into ventures. In this direction, we set a target of 100 thousand technopreneurships for 2030 in our National Entrepreneurship Strategy. We will ensure that thousands of new technology startups emerge from Turkey every year and build a giant entrepreneurship ecosystem with 100 thousand techno-startups.
A complementary element of this goal is to create technology startups worth more than billion dollars from Turkey. Technology startups exceeding a billion dollars in value, called ‘unicorns’ in the entrepreneurship literature, are also considered an indicator of the competitive power of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
In our 2023 Industrial and Technology Entrepreneurship strategy that we published in 2019, we stated that we would create unicorns from Turkey, that is, we would introduce our country to Turcorns. We have 7 Turcorns whose valuations from the investments they have received to date exceed billion dollars.
Gaming, software, e-commerce and fintech startups. The fact that our Ministry’s support and practices have contributed to the success of 6 of our 7 Turcorns is an indication that we are on the right track. Our goal; By 2030, 100 Turcorns will be born in this country, grow in this country and expand to the world. We know we have the potential to achieve this.
Thanks to the ecosystem and infrastructure we have established, technology entrepreneurship has been experiencing its golden age in Turkey since the pandemic. The fact that nearly 4 billion dollars have been invested in Turkish technology startups in the last 3 years alone, where approximately 1 billion dollars were invested in the previous 10 years, shows the momentum we have achieved.
Last year, our entrepreneurship ecosystem ranked fifth in Europe and first in the Middle East and Eastern Europe region in terms of the number of investments. Istanbul is considered the strongest early stage ecosystem by entrepreneurship authorities. We will not lose this momentum, we will increase it even further.
We ensure that public resources create a multiplier effect for our entrepreneurs with funding and co-financing mechanisms such as the Technology and Innovation Fund, Regional Development Fund, Regional Venture Capital Fund Calls, Bilisim Vadisi Venture Capital Investment Fund, Tech-InvesTR program.
With the legislative arrangements we made, we ensured that R&D centers and technopark companies, which benefit from our R&D incentives at a high level, direct their incentives towards entrepreneurial investments. We supported the transformation of business ideas and products created by project teams into ventures with the startup competitions we organized for the first time last year within the scope of TEKNOFEST, the world’s largest aviation, space and technology festival.
We established the Technology Entrepreneurship Council and took steps to prepare public policies and legislation with a perspective that supports our initiatives, with an innovation-friendly regulation approach. We transformed the TÜBİTAK Bigg Program into an investment program.
: With our Turcorn 100 Program, which is one of the main applications of our National Technology Entrepreneurship Strategy, we guide technology startups that have successfully passed the early stage and have high growth potential to scale faster and open up to global markets.
With the program, we aim to bring new Turcorns to our technology entrepreneurship ecosystem by providing qualified support to the needs of Turcorn candidates in the scaling phase with global goals.
An important component of the program, as well as the tailor-made support it provides, is the contributions of 17 program stakeholders who do not hesitate to take responsibility in Turkey’s technology-oriented development journey in order to create new success stories from our country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our startups will have a stronger presence in global markets by gaining access to knowledge and experience, as well as the strong support network offered by our program stakeholders.
After the first program we announced to the public on December 21, 2022, 72 technology startups have applied to become turcorn candidates to date. We examined the applications through the jury we formed with the participation of the stakeholders of our entrepreneurship ecosystem, taking into account criteria such as income size, innovation and technological depth. We took into account the expectations and needs of our companies.
As of today, we are sharing with the public the first 15 technology startups selected for the Turcorn 100 Program. Together, we will take our 15 Turcorn candidates to higher levels with special support in different sectors, from artificial intelligence to digital service technologies, from cyber security to health technologies, from green transformation to financial technologies.
With the Teknopazar Support Program, we will support our Turcorn candidate businesses to develop new collaborations with customers and investors in the international arena, and ensure their stronger presence in international platforms. We will offer 50 million lira financial support to Turcorn candidates with the Global Competitiveness Program that we will carry out through KOSGEB.
Believing is half the battle. In a place where there is no belief, success can only happen by chance. I would especially like to point out that I see the success of our initiatives, which will be the first members of the Turcorn 100 Programme, as a victory of faith and determination. Of course, this is just the beginning. We will continue to receive applications for new Turcorn candidates in the coming period.
I make an open call to technology-based initiatives of our ecosystem. Together with the Ministry and our stakeholders, we will continue to contribute to you and mobilize our resources for you and your success. As long as you work for Turkey, for the Turkish Century, you should not worry, we will support you and businesses like yours. Hopefully, we will take more confident steps towards our goals with your efforts, knowledge, talent and the competitive products and services you will provide.