This week, that lens comes from Kaan Akın, Managing Partner at Tenity. (This episode is in Turkish.)

Now based on London, Kaan has worn many hats over the past decade: founder of the accelerator Hackquarters, builder of corporate innovation programs, angel investor, and now Managing Partner at Tenity. Created from the merger of Hackquarters and Swiss accelerator F10, Tenity now has roughly 230m USD in assets under management with investments in over 120 startups. That background makes for a fascinating perspective on how startups, corporates, accelerators, and venture capital all fit together.

Our conversation starts with the story of Hackquarters and follows its journey to becoming part of Tenity. Along the way, we discuss questions that are becoming increasingly relevant—not just for founders in Turkey, but for anyone interested in innovation:

• How useful are accelerator programs today?

• Does corporate innovation create real value, or is it mostly theatre?

• How is venture capital changing in the age of AI?

• Why are fundraising dynamics shifting?

I also enjoyed hearing his reflections on Turkey as a startup market. His perspective is nuanced: Turkey has exceptional founders and technical talent, but companies that aspire to build globally often benefit from thinking internationally much earlier than they traditionally have.

We finish with a Rapid Fire round covering missed investments, underrated founder traits, sectors he’d never invest in, and his book and podcast recommendations.

This is episode #32 of TRVC.

When I started the podcast, I set myself the goal of having 100 conversations with investors and the people building the Turkish startup ecosystem. The idea was simple: create a long-form archive of the people, ideas, and debates shaping venture capital and entrepreneurship in Turkey, with many episodes in English.

Thirty-two conversations in, I’m even more convinced it was the right project.

If you’ve been following the journey, thank you. And if this is your first episode, I hope you’ll join us for the next 68.

If you've enjoyed following my journey, the biggest way you can support the project is simply to share these conversations with others who care about the Turkish startup ecosystem. I'd also love your feedback: get in touch through LinkedIn or just leave a comment.

That is the problem my latest guest, Serhat Çiçekoğlu, Managing Partner at Sente Ventures, is trying to solve. In this new episode of TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast (in English), we explore one of the least-discussed corners of venture capital: non-dilutive project financing for deep tech startups.

Instead of taking equity, Sente Ventures finances the construction of first-of-a-kind manufacturing facilities, helping founders bridge the gap between a successful pilot and full-scale commercialization.

Along the way, we discuss:

• Why deep tech requires a fundamentally different financing model than software startups

• Why commercialization—not technology—is often the biggest hurdle

• How project finance complements venture capital rather than replacing it

• Turkey’s opportunities—and shortcomings—as a deep tech ecosystem

• Why the venture industry may need to rethink how it finances capital-intensive innovation

🎙️ Watch the full episode here:

(also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts)

A while ago, someone asked me:

“Are there really more than 10 people to do a Turkish VC podcast episode with?”

This is now Episode 31 on my journey to 100 conversations with venture capital investors and ecosystem builders in Turkey and beyond.

The more conversations I have, the more convinced I become that we’ve only scratched the surface. There are so many thoughtful investors and ecosystem builders with unique perspectives still to feature. Yes the ecosystem is brand new, but that makes it all the more exciting.

If you’ve been enjoying these conversations, I’d love to have you along for the journey.

Subscribe to the YouTube channel and join me for the ride toward 100 conversations.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts after you’ve listened.

Yunus

That naturally raises a broader question. How do we create an ecosystem that enables more women to become founders, engineers, investors and technology leaders in the first place?

That is exactly what my latest TRVC podcast guest Nihal Güngör of SistersLab has been working on for years.

In our conversation, Nihal shares the story of building a social enterprise dedicated to increasing the participation of women and girls in STEM, supporting women in technology careers, and creating stronger networks and role models.

One thing I particularly appreciated about this discussion is that it avoids easy narratives.

Turkey has produced remarkable women founders and technology leaders. Several of the country’s biggest startup success stories include women among their founding teams. At the same time, there is clearly much more untapped potential.

Rather than asking whether Turkey is doing “well” or “poorly,” we explore what practical steps can help build an even stronger ecosystem.

We discussed:

• Why increasing women’s participation in technology benefits the entire startup ecosystem.

• The role of mentorship, communities and professional networks.

• Building and scaling a social enterprise from scratch.

• The importance of visible role models.

• Lessons learned from working with corporations, international organizations and public institutions.

• Why ecosystem building is a long-term investment.

The episode is also one of the shortest we’ve published on TRVC—around 25 minutes—making it an easy listen if you’re short on time. I hope you enjoy it.

This episode is in Turkish. The YouTube video has machine-created English subtitles and dubbing.

Listen

🎥 YouTube 🎧 Spotify 🎙️ Apple Podcasts

If you like these conversations about venture capital, startups and ecosystem building in Turkey and beyond, consider subscribing to the TRVC YouTube channel, or leaving a rating or a review in Apple Podcasts. I release a new episode every two weeks with investors and the people helping shape the Turkish startup ecosystem.

My guest this week is Alex Konoplyasty, Founder and General Partner of Flashpoint Capital, a firm that started as a venture growth investor focused on founders from Eastern Europe and other emerging markets, and has since expanded into growth debt and direct secondaries.

Today, Flashpoint manages over $600 million and invests in companies building for global markets, particularly the United States.

One reason I was excited about this conversation is that many of the challenges facing Turkish founders are not uniquely Turkish.

Questions around international expansion, fundraising, hiring talent, go-to-market, and exits are shared by founders across our broader region. Whether you’re building in Turkey, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, or elsewhere, the playbook for building a globally competitive technology company increasingly looks similar.

Alex brings a unique perspective, having spent years in investment banking before building Flashpoint into a platform spanning venture capital, growth-stage investing, and venture debt.

One quote from the episode that stuck with me:

“People know how to spray and pray money. People have no idea how to exit.”

Much of startup content focuses on startup fundraising and investment rounds. Alex places importance on what happens afterwards: building sustainable companies, creating strategic options, and ultimately generating successful exits.

We discussed:

• Building B2B startups that sell into the US market

• How Flashpoint helps companies scale beyond their home markets

• Why Europe struggles to produce venture-scale outcomes compared to the US

• The growing role of venture debt and when it makes sense instead of raising more equity

• How founders should think about dilution, growth financing, and capital strategy

• Why exits are the most overlooked skill in venture capital

• The difference between building a unicorn and building a valuable company

What I particularly enjoyed about this conversation was its practical perspective.

I hope this is the first of many conversations that place the Turkish startup ecosystem in a broader regional context and connect us with investors and founders across Eastern Europe and beyond.

🎙️ Watch the full episode on Youtube or Spotify, Apple Podcasts etc.

If you enjoy these conversations, please do subscribe to the YouTube channel or follow and like on LinkedIn — I really appreciate it. My goal with TRVC is to help other investors learn about and from the people building venture ecosystems both in Türkiye and across the wider region.

This week’s guest on TRVC, Yalın Karadoğan, is doing just that. After nearly three decades in private equity and growth equity at firms including JP Morgan Partners and Cinven, Yalın joined LeapFrog Investments, one of the world’s leading impact investment firms. Today, he focuses on investing in companies that both provide financial returns and make a contribution to the climate challenges ahead.

While Turkey is outside LeapFrog’s geographic investment mandate, Yalın remains actively involved in the Turkish ecosystem through the Türkiye Mozaik Foundation, a “charity of charities” that supports high-impact non-profit organizations working across a range of social issues in Turkey.

In a sense, he represents a broader trend that I find encouraging: members of the Turkish diaspora who have built successful international careers in investing, entrepreneurship, and technology, while continuing to contribute to Turkey in meaningful ways.

Our conversation explores the idea of impact investing: the belief that capital can be deployed in ways that generate attractive returns while also addressing important challenges in areas such as climate, healthcare, and financial inclusion.

In the episode we discuss:

• Why some of the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors are allocating capital to impact-focused strategies, how that pendulum has swung and where it is settling.

• The role of growth equity in helping companies scale solutions to large societal problems

• The relationship between philanthropy and investing

• Climate investing, emerging markets, and the opportunities created by long-term structural change

One of my takeaways from the conversation was that philanthropy and investing are often presented as separate worlds. But perhaps they are better thought of as complementary tools: some problems are best addressed through charitable giving. Others require entrepreneurs, sustainable business models, and long-term capital. The most interesting challenge is figuring out where each approach works best.

This episode is in Turkish.

Please subscribe to the TRVC YouTube channel, as it helps me grow the TRVC community and continue bringing great conversations from across the Turkish venture capital and startup ecosystem.

This week on TRVC, I sat down with Serkan Ünsal, founder of Startups.watch — the platform that has quietly become one of the core data sources behind the Turkish startup and venture capital ecosystem.

If you’ve ever seen quarterly Turkish VC funding numbers shared online, chances are there’s a good probability the underlying data came from Serkan and his team.

But this conversation went far beyond startup databases.

We talked about:

• why Turkey has become surprisingly strong at seed-stage investing

• why the ecosystem still struggles at Series A and growth stage

• how Turkish gaming companies became globally competitive

• why AI startups in Turkey are still early

• why Turkish startups often wait too long to globalize

• why acquisitions are still uncommon among Turkish corporates

• and what foreign investors actually think about the Turkish market

One thing I especially enjoyed was hearing Serkan’s perspective on the evolution of the ecosystem over the last 15 years — from a time when “startup” was barely a commonly used word in Turkey, to today’s much more mature venture ecosystem.

Before founding Startups.watch, Serkan worked at Ericsson Turkey and Turkcell, where he was involved in one of the earliest internal discussions around creating a corporate VC arm in Turkey back in 2008.

He later founded and exited his own startup, before a trip to Silicon Valley inspired him to build a platform tracking startup and investment activity in Turkey.

Today, Startups.watch contributes Turkish ecosystem data to international databases and ecosystem reports, helping ensure that Turkey is represented accurately in global startup rankings and analyses.

A few moments from the episode that stayed with me:

→ “Turkey is heaven for pre-seed and seed investment right now. But if you need more than $2 million, things become much harder.”

→ “Turkish founders often think the Turkish market is big enough. That can become a trap.”

→ “You don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to build a unicorn. Mindset matters more than location.”

→ “Many Turkish corporates still prefer building from scratch instead of acquiring startups — even when acquisitions would save them years.”

I also found the discussion around startup ecosystem data surprisingly fascinating:

• how investment data is actually collected

• why Teknoparks in Turkey are sitting on a treasure trove of data

• how global startup databases are often inaccurate for emerging markets

• and why reliable ecosystem data matters much more than most people realize

If you follow startups, venture capital, technology, or emerging ecosystems, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Referenced in the episode

📚 Organizations / Platforms

• Startups.watch

• Crunchbase

• PitchBook

• CB Insights

• Dealroom

• Mattermark

• DataFox (acquired by Oracle)

• Revo Capital

• 212

• Inveo

• GlobalTurk

📚 Companies Mentioned

• Peak Games

• Dream Games

• TaleMonster Games

• Fimple

• Aposto

• Paribu

• BTC Turk

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them. Just comment on this post.

If you like the interviews, please consider hitting subscribe on youtube. It helps me measure the impact.

Thanks for reading and listening,

Yunus

From the early days of KOSGEB programs to hands-on work with TÜBİTAK, and later roles at Teknopark Istanbul, Sefa has seen the ecosystem evolve from the inside.

Today, with In4Startups, he’s trying to do something quite ambitious:
turn startup support into a system — one that matches founders with investors, corporates, and real commercial opportunities. (The episode was recorded in Turkish, but English subtitles and even an automatic dubbing to English is available on the Youtube video).

What we talked about

• How Türkiye’s startup ecosystem evolved from grant-driven programs to early-stage investing

• Why institutions like KOSGEB and TÜBİTAK played such a foundational role

• The behind-the-scenes impact of Türk Ekonomi Bankası in building early startup pipelines

• The shift from grants (hibe) to equity-based support (e.g. TÜBİTAK 1512 → 1812)

• Why “every startup needs funding” is often the wrong framing

• The real bottleneck: not capital, but customers

• How In4Startups analyzes and matches startups with the right partners

• Why Anatolia (outside Istanbul) is still under-explored as a source of startups

• The importance of building startups that solve real sector problems, not just software problems

• Alternative growth paths: partnerships, POCs, and early revenue instead of funding

A simple but important idea

One idea kept coming up during the conversation:

Most startups don’t fail because they can’t raise money.
They fail because they don’t connect to real demand.

That sounds obvious — but a lot of the ecosystem is still optimized around funding rather than commercialization.

Sefa’s work is essentially about closing that gap.

Referenced

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of organizations, programs, and concepts that came up in the conversation:

• KOSGEB

• TÜBİTAK 1512 / 1812 (BİGG Program)

• TÜBİTAK TÜSSİDE

• Teknopark Istanbul

• TİM-TEB Girişim evi program

• Asya Ventures

• Startups Watch — upcoming TRVC episode with founder Serkan Ünsal

• Business Model Generation (Alexander Osterwalder)

• Startup’ların Başarı Kodları (Ahmet Sefa Bir)

Listen to the episode

The full episode (in Turkish) is now live on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. (English subtitles as well as an automatic dubbing to English are available on Youtube.)

If you:

• are raising a fund

• are investing in Türkiye

• or think there’s someone I should have on the podcast

just write a comment or find me on LinkedIn.

Or if you simply enjoyed the episode — feel free to say hi 👋

Thanks for being a part - in whichever way - of the Turkish entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This is also a small milestone: episode #25 of TRVC.
Across these first 25 episodes, the GPs I’ve hosted have collectively invested over $1B into Turkish startups. It’s been a front-row seat to how this ecosystem has evolved — and where it might be heading next.

💡 What we talked about with Gizem Yağız

• Why deep tech (and especially advanced materials) plays by a completely different VC playbook

• Why this area, largely overlooked by VC, is one of the biggest markets in the world

• How Türkiye’s industrial base is a competitive advantage for deep tech startups

• Why deep tech feels slow early on — and why that’s misleading

• The importance of pilot plants, scale-up, and commercial milestones

• Licensing vs building factories: different paths to scale

• Why strategic exits can be more attractive than IPOs in this space

• The role of non-dilutive funding (and why Europe is ahead here)

• Gaps in Türkiye’s deep tech ecosystem — and what’s needed to unlock it

• What kind of support deep tech founders actually need from investors

🔗 Referenced

• 212 NexT

• Akkök Holding

• Aksa Akrilik

• European Innovation Council

• Haelixa

• Aepnus

📚 Recommended

• The Four Agreements

• Stories That Stick

If you’re thinking about where Türkiye can really build an edge in technology — beyond software — this is a conversation worth your time.

As I look forward to the next 75 episodes to reach my 100 episode goal, I believe this podcast has started to establish a real resource of interviews with the investors that make up the Turkish VC ecosystem.

My goal is simple: map the ecosystem through the people building it.

If you’re a GP investing in or from Türkiye, an emerging manager, or raising a new fund — or if you know someone who should be on the podcast — please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.

Mustafa Keçeli is a senior leader at APY Ventures, one of Turkey’s most active venture capital platforms, operating under Albaraka Portföy. APY has built a broad portfolio across ~70+ startups and manages multiple venture funds (GSYFs), including both in-house and partner funds with institutions like Bilişim Vadisi and T3 Vakfı. In a market still early in its development, APY has become a key builder of Turkey’s VC infrastructure—combining institutional capital yet trying to apply a “think like a VC, not like a banker” mindset.

What we talked about

• Why VC cannot be run with a banking mindset—and what breaks if you try

• How APY scaled from 2 funds to 30+ and built a venture platform inside a bank

• The GSYF structure in Turkey, and how there is even a secondary shares market

• How they evaluate startups: team, market, and real-world traction

• Why Turkey produces strong technical talent but struggles with go-to-market

• The reality of exits in Turkey: why $20M–$50M exits matter more than unicorns

• Why APY sometimes chooses not to invest—even when capital is available

• The coming AI disruption and what founders are underestimating

Referenced

• APY Ventures — https://apy.ventures

• Albaraka Portföy — https://www.albarakaportfoy.com.tr

• Albaraka — https://www.albaraka.com.tr

• TaskRabbit — https://www.taskrabbit.com

• Armut — https://armut.com

• Betterment — https://www.betterment.com

• Robinhood — https://robinhood.com

• Flowla — https://flowla.com

• Scalex — https://www.scalexventures.com/ (+see my episode with Dilek Dayınlarlı)

• Botel (now Cendra) — https://cendra.ai

• Upsonic — https://upsonic.co

• Gardiyan — https://gardiyan.com

Ecosystem / institutions:

• Bilişim Vadisi — https://bilisimvadisi.com.tr

• KOSGEB — https://www.kosgeb.gov.tr

• OSTİM Teknopark — https://ostimteknopark.com.tr

• OSTİM Teknik Üniversitesi — https://www.ostimteknik.edu.tr

• T3 Vakfı — https://t3vakfi.org

• Ankara Teknopark — https://www.ankara-teknopark.com.tr

• Borsa İstanbul — https://www.borsaistanbul.com

• SPK — https://www.spk.gov.tr

Recommended

📚 Book

• An Edible History of Humanity (İnsanlığın Yeme Tarihi) — Tom Standage

🎧 Podcasts

• a16z Podcast — https://a16z.com/podcasts

If you’re trying to understand how venture capital actually works in an emerging market—and what it takes to build a real VC platform inside a regulated institution—this episode is a great place to start.

Full episode is in Turkish. Available on Youtube, Spotify, Apple podcasts

Since 2012, GBA has backed 60+ startups, including early investment in Insider.

But what stood out in our conversation wasn’t the amazing outcomes—it was the mechanism behind them.

Early-stage investing is not about access to deals.
It’s about access to founders.

And that access doesn’t come from brand or capital alone.

It comes from something much harder to systematize:
personal trust and direct engagement.

We get into:

• Why angel networks can outperform traditional VC structures at the earliest stages

• The limits of “platform” and “value-add” narratives

• How exits actually materialize (and why they’re rarely predictable)

• Why many startups struggle to move beyond their home market

• What LPs should really look for when evaluating early-stage exposure

If you’re allocating to venture—or thinking about it—this is a conversation worth listening to.

👉 Listen here: Youtube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast
Conversations with the people shaping venture in Turkey

Over the past 15 years, a handful of programs, investors, and institutions quietly laid the groundwork for what is now a fast-growing venture ecosystem.

In the latest episode of TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast, I sat down with Kenan Çolpan, partner at Boğaziçi Ventures, to trace that journey—from the early days of İTÜ ARI Teknokent and İTÜ Çekirdek, to today’s venture funds investing across the Turkish tech ecosystem.

Kenan was involved at several key moments in that story: helping build startup programs at ITÜ, becoming an early angel investor, and eventually co-founding Boğaziçi Ventures.

In our conversation, we discuss:

• How İTÜ Çekirdek and Big Bang helped catalyze the ecosystem
• The early years of angel investing and VC in Turkey
• How Boğaziçi Ventures built a multi-fund strategy (growth, AI, secondary, pre-IPO)
• Why Borsa İstanbul could become a meaningful exit path for tech companies
• What it will take for Turkey to produce more unicorns

More broadly, we talk about how ecosystems get built: the importance of capital, the role of universities, and why large domestic exits matter for the next generation of founders.

If you’re interested in startups, venture capital, or the future of Turkey’s technology economy, I think you’ll enjoy this episode.

Watch the episode:
Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts

—
Yunus Çelebiler
Host, TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast

In almost every episode of TRVC — the Turkish VC podcast, one theme keeps resurfacing:

Turkey doesn’t lack startups.
It doesn’t lack early-stage capital.
It lacks growth capital — funds that can write meaningful cheques and help companies scale beyond the early stages.

In this latest episode, I speak with İhsan Elgin, CEO of Finberg (the venture capital arm of Fibabanka) and Managing Partner at Oleka Capital — a platform built specifically to address that gap.

İhsan didn’t just observe the structural weakness in the ecosystem. He acted on it.

In our conversation, we explore:

• His journey from corporate executive at Koç Group to startup founder (with a U.S. exit)

• Launching one of Turkey’s earliest accelerator programs

• Building Finberg into a multi-fund investment platform

• Why DPI now matters more than TVPI in today’s venture environment

• The coming shakeout in VC funds

• Why Turkish founders must think regionally to unlock larger exits

• And how Oleka is using growth equity, SPVs, and venture debt to create a new model of growth financing

This is a thoughtful, strategic discussion about the evolution of venture capital in Turkey — less hype, more fundamentals.

If you’re a founder, investor, LP, or operator building in Turkey and the surrounding region, I believe you’ll find this episode particularly relevant.

You can watch on Youtube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts

As always, I welcome your feedback and reactions.

Best,
Yunus
TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast

The first episode in 2026 of TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast is now live, and I’m excited to share it with you. This episode is in Turkish — in the spirit of creating bridges between Turkish partners at VC firms outside of Turkey and the ecosystem in Türkiye.

In this episode, I speak with Zeynep Yavuz, Partner at General Catalyst, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms with over $43B under management. Zeynep is a Partner based in London, working with founders from seed stage all the way to IPO.

This was a wide-ranging and thoughtful conversation that goes beyond headlines and into how great companies are actually built.

Some of the topics we cover:

• What investors really look for at the seed stage — and why “why you’re building” matters more than “what you’re building”

• How General Catalyst partners with companies from seed to IPO under one platform

• Europe’s structural challenges around exits and IPOs

• Turkey’s gaming success and the role of “academy companies”

• New funding models beyond equity, including user acquisition financing

• One of the most important emerging trends: AI-driven transformation of service businesses

It’s a candid discussion about venture capital, entrepreneurship, and navigating uncertainty in a fast-changing world.

🎧 You can watch or listen to the episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts

As always, thank you for following TRVC. If you find the episode valuable, feel free to share it with others who might enjoy it as well.

Best,
Yunus

We talked about:

• How Inveo balances its corporate roots with startup-style agility

• Why they’re bullish on fintech, cybersecurity, and AI

• Their evolving strategy with external LPs and Fund-of-Funds

• And why founder–investor communication still needs work in our ecosystem

Haluk brings a rare dual perspective — both operator and investor — and shares real, actionable insight into what it takes to scale and back startups in Turkey today.

Whether you’re a founder, investor, or just curious about Turkey’s fast-evolving startup scene, TRVC brings your fresh conversations from the frontlines of Turkish venture capital.

Best regards,
Yunus

🎧 Listen now on Spotify/Apple/etc.
📺 Watch on YouTube:

It’s been almost three weeks since the last episode — thanks for your patience! I’m back with a great conversation that was worth the wait.

In this new episode of TRVC, I sat down with A. Burak Dağlıoğlu, President of the Türkiye Investment and Finance Office. We had a wide-ranging discussion about how global capital is flowing into the country — and where startups fit into that picture.

We talked about:

• How Turkey’s startup ecosystem went from a handful of deals in the early 2010s to attracting $5 billion in the last four years

• Why talent and demographics are Turkey’s secret weapons in tech

• The role of programs like Technology Parks, TÜBİTAK, and BIGG in nurturing early-stage innovation

• Challenges around Series A+ funding and exits, and what’s being done to bring larger funds into the ecosystem

• The opportunity to create not just unicorns, but regional champions that can scale beyond Turkey

• How diaspora networks and dual-hub structures (R&D at home, sales abroad) are strengthening global reach

We also talked about the role of the Türkiye Wealth Fund and Development Fund, and why he’s optimistic about the future despite global headwinds.

🎧 Listen to the episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

If you’re new here — welcome! TRVC is my podcast where I sit down with investors and ecosystem builders to explore the stories shaping Turkey’s venture capital and startup scene.

I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it.

Yunus Çelebiler

I’m excited to share the latest episode of the TRVC Podcast, another one in Turkish! (Back to English in our next couple of episodes.) This time, I had a fascinating conversation with Hüseyin Oğuz — someone whose journey perfectly captures the highs and lows of startup life.

Hüseyin started out as the 6th employee at Turkish SaaS startup Ekmob, went on to be a late founder at Pulpo AR, where he exited to a U.S.-listed company. Today, he channels all that experience into helping early-stage founders tackle one of the hardest challenges in the game: fundraising.

In our conversation, we dive into:

• Why fundraising is a full-time job that can slow founders down.

• The “dark room” analogy of early-stage entrepreneurship (and why only those who’ve been there can really guide you).

• How international investors are beginning to look at Turkey with fresh eyes.

• Why AI is changing fundraising dynamics faster than most realize.

For me, one of the strongest insights from Hüseyin was that fundraising isn’t just about capital — it’s about storytelling, resilience, and choosing the right partners.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here: Youtube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts

As always, thank you for listening and for being part of this community. I’d love to hear your thoughts based on your experience or vantage point on the ecosystem.

Best,
Yunus

We talked about:

• Why too many startups in Turkey get stuck in the “seed trap” — and how bigger early checks can change the game

• How Metis is building a platform that goes beyond just a fund

• The overlooked power of governance and impact when scaling startups

• And why so many of Turkey’s unicorns have women on their founding teams 🚀

Merve also shared some behind-the-scenes stories about recent investments, the role of exited founders as LPs, and what it really takes for Turkish startups to go global.

🎧 You can listen to the episode on Youtube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m excited to be back on the mic after a few weeks away, and I think you’ll enjoy this one as much as I did recording it.

Best,
Yunus

We’re back with a new episode of the TRVC Podcast — and this one’s in Turkish 🇹🇷! (From time to time, I record episodes in Turkish with people working in the VC and startup ecosystem outside of Turkey, to help bridge experience, knowledge and insights from those ecosystems.)

In our second Turkish-language episode, we sit down with Ertan Can, founder and managing partner of Multiple Capital, one of Europe’s leading fund of funds investors.

Ertan shares:

• His personal journey from asset management to VC

• Why investing in early-stage startups is hard — and why fund of funds are more appropriate for most investors

• The evolution of the European venture capital landscape — some pitfalls of well meaning public incentives

• The realities of fund-of-funds investing, and how Turkey fits into the global puzzle

Whether you're an LP, a fund manager, or just curious about the big picture of the European and Turkish VC ecosystems, don’t miss this episode.

🎧 Listen now → on Youtube, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

Thanks for tuning in,
— Yunus Celebiler

🎙️ In this episode:

• How Eksim’s core businesses in energy, food, and infrastructure shape its investment strategy

• The unique challenges and advantages of being a CVC in the Turkish ecosystem

• İnalcan’s journey from working at a startup to investing in them—and what founders should know when pitching to CVCs

This is one of the few in-depth looks at how corporate VCs think and operate in Turkey. If you're a fund manager, investor, or just curious about how on of Turkey’s most active CVC’s operaties, this episode is for you.

👉 Watch now on Youtube or Listen on Spotify

Thanks for tuning in,
Yunus Celebiler
Host, TRVC – The Turkish VC Podcast

I’m excited to share the first-ever Turkish-language episode of the TRVC podcast — a conversation with Şahin Boydaş, a Turkish-American serial entrepreneur and angel investor based in Silicon Valley and Austin, TX.

From time to time, I’ll be recording episodes in Turkish that feature Turks working in venture capital and startups abroad. These conversations aim to share the insights they've gained from global ecosystems — for a Turkish-speaking audience.

In this episode, Şahin talks candidly about his journey from founding startups to becoming an active angel investor, his perspective on backing early-stage teams, and what makes the Turkish ecosystem both challenging and full of potential.

If you speak Turkish — or are curious to listen in — I’d love for you to check it out.

🎙 Listen to the episode on YouTube
🎧 Or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more.

Also, note a spiffy new URL for the podcast’s website: turkishvc.org

I hope I’m doing something useful, but if I’ve made a mistake somewhere please let me know. I’ll always do my best to improve.

Thanks as always for tuning in,
Yunus Çelebiler