Postcards from Elsewhere: Gaming, fintech, and Türkiye’s momentum

Having boots on the ground in so many markets means we hear the unfiltered stories of how ecosystems Elsewhere are evolving.

They remind us that ambitious founders can thrive anywhere, sparking change far beyond your usual global hubs. Today, we’re passing the mic to Asli Kurul Türkmen, Managing Director of Endeavor Türkiye, for a look at what’s unfolding there right now.

Postcards from Istanbul

With Asli Kurul Türkmen, Managing Director of Endeavor Türkiye

I’ve been at Endeavor Türkiye for almost 20 years, and I’ve never seen growth like in the past five years. Before the pandemic, we only saw one company raise $10M or more each year. Now, it’s common to get 15. And just last year, nearly 15 VCs invested in Türkiye for the first time. I get a lot more calls from investors, especially based in Europe and the Gulf, like “I’m coming over, who should I meet?” 

This whole gaming phenomenon really sets Türkiye apart. The last five years were marked especially by the massive round that valued Dream Games at almost $5B, the $1.8B acquisition of Peak Games, and the $55M investment in Spyke Games, built by part of Peak’s founding team. This industry is now also evolving into app studios, as is the case with Codeway, founded by Endeavor Entrepreneurs we’ve been supporting since last year. Companies in cybersecurity or B2B software are also expanding to new territories, and taking Türkiye’s name with them. Insider is a great example: after a $500M Series E round last year, the platform is making the US the 29th country it operates in.

I believe a lot of these changes have to do with how our entrepreneurs are becoming more global. Truth is, not even Turkish VCs like investing in companies that only have Türkiye as a market, especially due to political and economic risk. Fintech might be the only exception — for example, Midas, a retail investing platform we selected in July, secured an $80M Series B, Türkiye’s largest fintech round to date. Yet it is still very locally focused since the opportunity here is so big. But with gaming, you’re immediately in app stores worldwide. 

Conversely, we also see many Turkish founders moving to wherever it makes sense for the company to be based — Dubai, London, Germany.  But they’re not second or third-generation diaspora, they’re the first; they still maintain strong ties to their country, mentor startups, and also hire a lot of engineers from Türkiye. For example, San Francisco-based founders from Udemy, an edtech that went public in 2021, and fal.ai, a generative media platform valued at $1.5B this year, often come to Istanbul. 

Istanbul is where most things happen. A lot of the events and conversations take place at Kolektif House, a coworking space founded by Endeavor Entrepreneurs, and our mentor Korhan Erçin’s craft beer bar is often the chosen after-work hangout spot. You easily run into people there, at the Kanyon Mall, or around Moda, a multi-cultural area in the Asian side of the city. That said, we also have a nascent ecosystem in our capital, Ankara, particularly due to the recent productization of the defense sector, and in Izmir, where founders have been opening software and R&D centers because of the local talent. 

I’m very optimistic about how this “go big and go home” mentality will impact the next generation of Turkish founders, and how they’re already becoming notable role models in the region. Last month, I went to a prominent VC fund’s general meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and they showed a slide that was all logos of companies whose paths Kazakh founders can follow, most of them Endeavor Entrepreneurs from Türkiye and Emerging Asia.

It made me immediately text our CEO, Linda Rottenberg: “Look, the tables have turned!” We often think we’re behind, but in many ways, we’re also ones to look up to.