The intensive schedule for the selection process of the 40 ventures that applied to Etohum during the past year is nearing the end. The selected ventures and entrepreneurs will be announced on Saturday February 28th, 2012 during the full-day program of the Etohum Entrepreneurship Summit. Many successful entrepreneurs had participated in the summit that will be organized with the attendance of expert entrepreneurs and professionals. more »
With the developments in recent years, internet startups in Turkey are becoming in demand investment companies. Each year hundreds of new startups join the new economy. Turkey has become an important market attracting attention with its young population and young entrepreneurs.
About Startup Turkey
40 startups are selected each year from among thousands of new entrepreneurs with the support of the leading players in this market. Following the selection process by angel investors, the number of startups on ecommerce, mobile, game, software is reduced to 15. These selected high potential entrepreneurs of Turkey attend a 3 day camp in February. The leading internet companies of Turkey along with investors attend Turkey’s Internet Startups – Etohum Camp, the fourth of which will be held this year.
Our Story
Etohum is the most important market place consisting of Turkey’s leading investors, entrepreneurs and internet professionals that both invests in and supports the new economy companies. Since 2008 it has selected hundreds of internet startups and in an effort to help these new startups succeed it has either made investments or brought them together with investors. The advisory and selection board consists of the founders of the leading internet companies in Turkey.
Each year Etohum continues to make one-to-one interviews with entrepreneurs chosen from among 1000s of applications to select the startups that are most suited for investment (see 2008, 2009, 2010). To this end, Etohum organizes over 50 meetings, activities and conferences each year to help form the internet ecosystem. Etohum also plays a leading role in the development of new entrepreneurs by cooperating with universities, techno parks, university clubs and all other relevant companies.
Until today Etohum has broadcast over 500 videos (vimeo, etohumtv) and organized almost 150 meetings. It has organized entrepreneurship activities at various cities in Turkey. The activity that will take place at Antalya during February 17 – 18 – 19, 2012 will once again bring together the leading and developing internet companies of Turkey with investors.
Company Participants
Participants
Being a participant of StartupTurkey – Etohum Camp
Venue: Rixos, Antalya
Etohum Rixos Camp February Program
February 17, 2012 Friday – Meeting- Conference -
7:00 – 9:00 Welcome Breakfast
9:00 – 11:15 Opening – Speednetworking
11:15 – 11:30 Tea & Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30 Conference
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 Conference
14:30 – 15:00 Tea & Coffee break
15:00 – 16:00 Conference
16:00 – 16:30 Tea & Coffee break
16:30 – 17:30 Conference
17:30 – 19:00 Free Time
19:00 – 21:00 Dinner with Entrepreneurs
21:00 – 00:00 Networking
February 18, 2012 Saturday – Entrepreneur – Investor
7:00 – 9:00 Breakfast
9:00 – 10:00 Entrepreneur – Investor Presentations
10:00 – 10:15 Tea & Coffee break
10:15 – 11:15 Entrepreneur – Investor Presentations
11:15 – 11:30 Tea & Coffee break
11:30 – 12:30 Entrepreneur – Investor Presentations
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 Entrepreneur – Investor Presentations
14:30 – 15:00 Tea & Coffee break
15:00 – 16:00 Entrepreneur – Investor Presentations
16:00 – 16:30 Tea & Coffee break
16:30 – 17:30 Entrepreneur – Investor one-to-one meetings
17:30 – 19:00 Free Time
19:00 – 22:00 Closing Dinner
22:00 – 00:00 Networking
February 19, 2012 Sunday – Entrepreneur – Investor
07:00 – 9:00 Breakfast
08:00 – 09:45 Etohum Investment Co. Meeting
09:45 – 10:00 Tea & Coffee break
10:00 – 11:45 Etohum Camp Evaluation
11:45 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 16:00 Entrepreneur – Investor one-to-one meetings
14:00 – 16:00 Networking – Check out
16:00 – 18:00 Airport Transfer – Hotel checkout
18:00 – 22:30 Plane departures
Participation: Invitation only
Burak Buyukdemir: Graduated from Istanbul Technical University Management Engineering department in 1994 and the Bosphorus University MBA program in 1997. After working at Interbank, Intertech, Vestelnet, Tepum companies, completed his MBA studies at Berlin in 2003. He is the author of “Why Eagles in a Pen Can Not Fly?” a book depicting the founding stories of internet companies in Turkey. He has been a founding partner of various internet companies. He is the founding partner of Goril Inc. He is the founder of Etohum which brings entrepreneurs together with investors. He is currently working as a part-time lecturer at ITU and Bahçeşehir Universities giving a lecture on e-commerce strategies. more »
Applications and interviews for the 2011 – 2012 Etohum period started in August. Interviews with entrepreneurs who apply until December 31st, 2011 will commence in the following days. First applicants to Etohum have the opportunity to be evaluated first. It should be kept in mind that there is a very short amount of time to be spent with those who apply in late December.
All Etohum applicants are valuable for us. Hence we do not reject any candidate. We just want to talk face to face with candidates who are more suited to our investment criteria and we get in touch with them. Besides, we find the opportunity to spend more time with entrepreneurs who attend the biweekly etohum café meetings and monthly etohum camps. Etohum is not a contest. Thus, it is an important criterion for the entrepreneurs to display their entrepreneurship skills.
During the 2010 – 2011 time frame, the Etohum fund along with 18 angel investors made investments to Pembepanjur.com and Gideros Mobile. In the following year we are planning to increase this number and either be a partner to or find investments for all the candidates selected to Etohum 40. To this end, we are continuously striving to increase the investment fund and include more investors into our ecosystem. We will give more detailed information to you about this issue in the following months.
In Etohum applications we analyze projects at idea stage along with incorporated projects that have reached a certain turnover. The investors can sometimes be more interested in incorporated projects that have started issuing invoices. This should not demotivate applicants with strong ideas; however it should enforce them to bring their ideas to a demo / beta stage.
Ventures may be ecommerce, game, mobile, software and all projects that fit in the new economy concept. It is estimated that in the following years the usage of internet and mobile devices will increase in Turkey. Thus, there are opportunities for many sectors. We are positive about the Turkish adaptations of projects which have become successful abroad. We do not have such prejudices. No matter how creative the idea is, the most important factor for the investors is the team. Besides, the scalability and market size data for the project are points that should be taken into consideration along with the team.
Planned Etohum Process for August 2011 – February 2012
The year of 2011 started very positively for internet entrepreneurs. Many foreign investors discovered the Turkish market. I am guessing that in the coming months and years we will hear more news of investments. We are happy that Grupanya.com selected to etohum 15 in 2010 grew rapidly and that in January they received their second investment from Intel Capital. We readily congratulate all the team and the first angel investors.
Different from the past years at Etohum, in 2011 we decided to make investments in Pembepanjur.com and Gideros Mobile from the fund that we established with Turkey’s leading internet entrepreneurs / angel investors. We enabled the finalization of seed investments to 3 ventures, Gamester, Alisverisrobotu and Animalwars from the support fund that we established together with Nokia. I am guessing that investment interviews for some of the ventures from last year’s etohum 40 are still continuing and that we will read news about these at webrazzi in August – September timeframe. Bilyoner, one of our business partners, decided to invest in a daily deal website: Grupca. After the finalization of the partnership, the venture moves on as Bombastik.
At the end of January we announced the E15 and E40 ventures during the Entrepreneurship Summit. Following the selection of the ventures we went to a 5 day Etohum camp at Rixos Antalya together with entrepreneurs who were selected in previous years. Leading experts in the sector attended this camp as speakers.
During the Presentation Day entrepreneur – investor meeting organized for internet ventures outside of etohum which took place on Saturday, April 9th, Saturday, 10 internet companies had the opportunity to present their ventures to investors. On December 11th, Saturday we went to Izmir along with about 40 entrepreneurs within the scope of Entrepreneurs are Flying.
In February we joined EBAN, a network that brings together angel investors, seed funds and business angels that support start ups in Europe. Thus, in the following period we will be more active in developing relations with foreign networks.
We started “The Search for 10 Software Developer Entrepreneurs” in February. We are continuing to look for software developer entrepreneurs for the Microsoft Innovation Center. We organized Etohum camps at Ankara in March and at Izmir in April. We arranged a Speed Networking activity in April 7 with Ertuğrul Belen. We made live etohumtv broadcasts with Pozitiftv in March, April and May. We organized an Entrepreneurship summer camp in June with Özyeğin University and provided entrepreneurship training and internships at internet companies for university students. In July, we organized company visits to Markafoni, Mynet, Yemeksepeti and Ebebek within the scope of the summer camp program.
We made the broadcasts for etohumtv and about 30 meetings that took place since January with pozitiftv which is the company of Can Ateş, Cem Evren Ateş, the founders of keyground which was another etohum 15 project. Besides, all meetings that took place at Özyeğin University and elsewhere were organized by KTH Congress founded by an Özyeğin University student, Efe Kethuda.
We organized about 30 meetings. There were 100 speakers in these meetings. In May Faruk Eczacıbaşı and in June Hüsnü Özyeğin were the invited guests of Etohum coffee meetings. We reprinted with Tasarti.com the Entrepreneur Sperm T-Shirt designed by Can Oktay Heper and put it up for sale.
We thank our business partners Nokia, Reklamz, Yemeksepeti, Gittigidiyor, Bilyoner, Maçkolik, Rixos, Mynet, Markafoni, Nokta, Sadecehosting, Sendloop, Sporx, Marjinal Porter Novelli, Uzmantv, Microsoft, Gelirortakları, Özyeğin University, İzmir University of Economics, Bahçeşehir University, Bersay Institute of Communication, Bilkent Cyberpark, Networking Academy and Kurumsalhaberler for making all this possible.
The Etohum Fund that we established last year with etohum angel investors made 2 investments this year. Gideros Mobile and Pembepanjur.com.
Pembepanjur.com (detailed information), a website presenting scientific match-ups to its members for “long term and serious relationships” which was founded in 2010 by Haluk Akın and Seda Berber and Gideros Mobile (detailed information), a development platform enabling game developers to code their games once and release it simultaneously in more than one platform which was founded by Deniz Aslı Soykurum Çetin and Atılım Çetin were the two ventures that Etohum Fund invested in during 2011.
Angel investors comprised of Yemeksepeti.com founders Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, Gittigidiyor founders Burak Divanlıoğlu and Serkan Borançılı, Cimri.com founder Aydonat Atasever, Magnet founding partner Ersan Özer, Nokta.com founding partners Tümay Asena, Burçin Didinedin, Mynet founder Emre Kurttepeli, Mackolik.com founding partners Erdem Yurdanur and Tarkan Onar, Reklamz founder Orkun Tekin, Markafoni founding partner Sina Afra, Youth Republic founding partner Kerim Türe, investor Dr. Haluk Elçi, Yonja.com founder Kerim Baran, Ari Keşişoğlu who is continuing his career in the internet sector abroad and etohum.com founder Burak Büyükdemir partnered in the 2 investments selected during 2010 to which Etohum fund will invest in.
Etohum which was founded to increase the number of internet ventures in Turkey, support entrepreneurs and to create a marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors thus creating and developing an internet ecosystem conducts detailed studies every year in order to determine the 15 internet ventures that will be invested in. In 2010 a total of 2.200 internet entrepreneurs applied to etohum and a shortlist of 40 ventures were selected from among the 200 candidates who were first selected for face to face interviews. In January, these short listed entrepreneurs made presentations to the founders of the etohum fund. Ventures which will be invested in were selected during the Rixos Etohum camp organized in Antalya during February.
2011 – 2012 etohum applications and interviews will continue during August – December. The 40 internet ventures that will be selected will make their presentations to etohum angel investors in January 2012. Following the initial partnering process for most of the etohum 40 ventures we aim to go for second round investments and increase the number of invested ventures in the following year.
Pembepanjur.com was founded in January 2010 as a service providing scientific match-ups to its members for “long term and serious relationships”. The free “character analysis” service created by experts is one of the most important services in this website. Match-ups among members are made via a mathematics based system. The mathematical infrastructure is continuously enhanced in the light of information obtained by examining member behavior through data mining. The “disclosure” feature provided by the website is another leading feature of Pembe Panjur. Thus, if they desire the members may only be viewed by their match-ups and the other compatible members. Over 150 thousand new memberships were created during the first 11 months of Pembe Panjur. Monthly page view is approximately 10 million while the number of monthly unique visitors is close to 200 thousand.
Haluk Akın, PhD, has an internet project experience of over 5 years. He completed his bachelor degree at Yıldız Technical University and his doctorate degree on Operations Research and Simulation at the University of Central Florida. Due to his programming experience of over 20 years he has taken active roles in many social network, blog and e-commerce projects both in Turkey and America.
Seda Berber has an advertising and interactive design experience of over 6 years. After completing her university education in METU she attended certificate programs in America on marketing and advertising. During 2004-2010 she worked at Ryder Communications, a Los Angeles based company carrying out design and communication projects for many international and US based firms and in October 2010 started working as web director at another California based consumer electronics expert, Noyd Communications. She lives in Los Angeles and leads the creative team of dating and design projects serviced by Optima Group. Her portfolio can be viewed at sedaberber.com.
Gideros is a mobile game development tool. Thanks to Gideros, developers will be able to code their games once and release simultaneously in more than one platform. Gideros enables game developers with no knowledge of advanced technologies such as OpenGL, C++, Objective C to easily and rapidly develop two dimensional games via the “lau” script language. Gideros has an IDE that operates in all main operating systems (Windows, Linux, MacOS). Three games that we developed by using Gideros (TimTheTimber, Pictus, Tap Tap Socker) are about to be released (iOS, paid in Application Store). Betikus is a venture that is active in mobile game development. It develops game development tools and mobile games.
Deniz Aslı Soykurum Çetin studied at METU Electrics-Electronics Engineering department during 1994-1999. She worked as a software specialist and team leader for three years at the Tübitak Space Technologies Research Institute Internet Technologies and multimedia group. In 2002 she went to USA and lived in Maryland working at various video processing and 3D application projects. She worked on (mobile) embedded software projects and became a Project Manager at Vestek, the R&D company of the Vestel group of companies. During 2006-2010 she worked as the project manager in various simulation projects in KaTron Defense, Space and Simulation Technologies company in Koç Group. In 2010 she focused on mobile game market and founded her own company. She is a member of PMI® and holds PMP® and REP degrees.
Atılım Çetin: Studied at METU Computer Engineering department during 1996-2001. He worked as a software specialist at Makrosam Software, Tübitak UEKAE and Meteksan System companies. During 2006-2009 he worked as a specialist software engineer, technical group leader and three dimensional software group leader in various simulation projects at KaTron Defense, Space and Simulation Technologies company in Koç Group. Since 2009 he is working as a technical group leader at Huawai. In 2010 he founded Betikus and is the design architect and technical group leader of the Gideros IDE. He is the author of the book entitled Computer Graphics (ISBN: 975 347 104 0) published by Seçkin Yayıncılık. He is also one of the authors of “Three Dimensional Computer Graphics” and “Animation” titles in the Turkish Informatics Encyclopedia.
Etohum started in August and its application period ended in December and in January we shortlisted 40 venture ideas from amongst 1,000 venture ideas by 2,200 entrepreneurs. We met with these entrepreneurs on Saturday, 8th of January for a one day training about 5 minute presentations and the expectations of the investors. On 15 – 16 January, the 40 ventures attended a 5 minute presentation and 5 minute question-answer session.
Etohum fund contributors and the team that would evaluate the 40 etohum projects consisted of 18 people. Gittigidiyor.com founders Burak Divanlıoğlu, Serkan Borançılı, Yemeksepeti.com founders Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, Mynet.com founder Emre Kurttepeli, Nokta.com founders Tümay Asena and Burçin Didinedin, Mackolik.com founders Erdem Yurdanur and Tarkan Onar, Uzmantv founder Ersan Özer, Markafoni.com founder Sina Afra, Reklamz founder Orkun Tekin, Yonja.com founder Kerim Baran, Cimri.com founder Aydonat Atasever, Kerim Türe one of Youth Republic founders, Dr. Haluk Elçi one of Inventram advisors, Ari Keşişoğlu who continues his career in internet abroad and etohum.com founder Burak Büyükdemir. Eleven people attended to listen to the presentations. Those that cannot attend have the chance to watch the videos later. The evaluations were made on January 15 -16 Saturday – Sunday for two full days from 09:00 – 17:00.
Evaluations were made in the view of 3 main criteria. Entrepreneur, venture and investment.
Entrepreneur / team; Preparation, Entrepreneurship, Personality, Experience, Ability/Talent, Business Judgment, Team Harmony, Team Sufficiency were evaluated out of 100.
Venture; evaluation was made out of 100 for the variables of Market, Marketing Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Revenue Model, Scalability, Operation, Risk/Insufficiency Resolution.
Investment factor; was evaluated out of 100 for Investment Necessity/Need, Etohum Added Value, Investment Eligibility, Financials, Investment Offer, Investment Decision.
For all these points the effects of entrepreneur / team, venture and investment were evaluated as 40 %, 35 % and 25 % respectively and after the weighted averages were obtained the etohum 15 were selected following a 2-3 hour evaluation meeting.
As can be seen from the above function, key points are how the entrepreneur will carry out or has carried out this venture. At Etohum we are looking for new entrepreneurs and ventures. These may be e-commerce sites as well as software that are novel technologically. The common ground is entrepreneurship. I think that especially this point should be stressed out. In our country innovation, invention, creativity or distinctness is mixed with entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship may be very successful if it can combine all these properties however this is not necessary. The grocery store in your neighborhood is an entrepreneur; the programmer who codes a search engine may also be an entrepreneur. Thus, the properties that we look for are ventures and entrepreneurs that may be successful commercially. All investors look for this. Hence it should not surprise anyone that entrepreneurs with a clear business model who show that they either can do or have done this job successfully are selected. Some of these may be e-commerce sites as in previous years.
Yes, all of us want ventures similar to those from developed countries to emerge from our country. I think that no one has any doubts about this. We have to accomplish this step by step. I think that it is not possible to catch up with a system that was founded 50 years ago in just 4-5 years and I also think that we should not upset ourselves by making wrong comparison. We should continue working without making excuses, despairing, blaming others and becoming desperate and aggrieved. It is a must for us to establish not individual successful ventures but a successful investment culture. That is why we should leave our nests and support the entrepreneurship system. I believe that everyone has a part to play. We should keep our energies high and be positive. When we setup a proper ecosystem, a culture that will enlarge itself will automatically emerge. That is why we will start counting from 1.
The etohum applications that started in August ended in December. After we finalized the selection period in the beginning of January and carried out the one day meeting with the Etohum 40 entrepreneurs about presentation and communication with investors on January 8, Saturday; 5 minute presentations were made to the etohum fund on January 15 and 16. We will announce the 15 ventures that we selected after all these steps during the Entrepreneurship Summit that will take place on January 29, 2011 Saturday at Bahçeşehir University.
Different from the previous selection years, we decided to make investments to etohum entrepreneurs from the etohum fund and started meetings with some entrepreneurs from January 17. We hope to announce the investments that are finalized until January 29th on the same date. We aim to support these entrepreneurs with whom Etohum fund participants will be partners so that they will rapidly develop and grow. In addition to these will supply office space at Etohum Garage to those from amongst the etohum 40 who will need a work space under the partnership conditions that we will soon announce.
We will announce the entrepreneurs that we will support with the 60.000 Nokia – Etohum fund that we set up together with Nokia and those that Nokia will support on January 29th. We will also support these ventures that are developing projects for the mobile environment as etohum during the Entrepreneurship Summit with the participation of Nokia Turkey General Manager Conor Pierce.
We are going to Antalya during 16 – 20 February with girisimcilerucuyor.com. We will make a 5 day Etohum Rixos Camp. The 40 Etohum companies that we selected this year will be able to attend as guests. In addition speakers, investors and the founders of Turkey’s leading internet companies will also attend. We are planning to supply the attendants with various practical information and ensure that experiences are shared. (The Rixos camp program of last year and a short video of what we did and the comments of participants).
This year etohum applications start in February. We will start meeting with new internet entrepreneurs by January 1. We will ensure that they make presentations to the etohum web of investors every 2 months. Etohum Investors Club will regularly get together to listen to the presentations of these ventures. We will also allow entrepreneurs who are seeded to these presentations. We will continue announcing etohum 40 and etohum 15 in January as we do every year. Etohum Fund will continue to evaluate 40 entrepreneurs for investment every year but from now on the entrepreneurs will not have to wait for the 1 year process to end. You may start filling the etohum form to start your application process.
The ‘Presentation Day’ program during which the entrepreneurs that applied etohum in 2010 but who were not among the selected etohum 40 will have a chance to present their projects to everyone will be broadcast live via etohumtv and we will enable each entrepreneur the chance to explain their project in 5 minutes. The entrepreneurs who want to present their projects at sunumgunu.com that will take place on 26th of March Saturday should apply etohum.com.
During February we aim to start the Entrepreneurship Documentary program in which the entrepreneurs will share their daily lives with us. We will select 10 internet entrepreneurs and expect them to share their daily schedule with us at etohumtv.
Girisimcilerucuyor.com program continues with Antalya camp. The next program will take place in Ankara on the 27th of March and in Izmir on the 2nd of April. If we complete the organization in Izmir we are planning to spend Sunday in Izmir as well.
I would like to summarize the developments that took place during 2010. (In August I had written about what took place during the first 7 months, developments during 2008 – 2009). The entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey is developing rapidly. We are facing a growing economy. Last year we made 41 Etohum meetings, camp and etohumtv shoots. There are a total of 387 episodes at Etohumtv (televidyon, vimeo); I believe that these will be regarded as a documentary in the following years. We invited over 140 speakers to all the meetings. They shared developments and their experiences with us. The meetings that we held during 2010 are as follows;
You may reach photos of all meetings via flickr, videos via vimeo, presentations via slideshare. To follow Etohum at twitter, friendfeed and the facebook fan page
