One of the things I enjoy most about TRVC is discovering just how deep the Turkish venture capital ecosystem has become. There are many funds doing interesting things in Turkey that remain relatively unknown outside their immediate circles. There are also remarkable Turkish VC professionals investing from London, New York, Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Part of what I hope to do with TRVC is bring out those voices and gradually build a fuller picture of an ecosystem that is much broader than most people realize.
This week’s guest is different. Cenk Bayrakdar and Revo Capital need little introduction to anyone who follows Turkish venture capital. Revo is now on its third fund and has grown from an initial $15 million commitment to roughly $300 million across its funds and co-investment vehicles.
But Revo wasn’t always an established institution. Cenk started it in 2013, when the Turkish VC industry as we know it today barely existed.
It makes me wonder: of all the new funds being created in Turkey today, which ones will we look back on 10 or 15 years from now and realize we were watching the beginning of something much bigger?
From product to venture capital
There was another reason I particularly enjoyed this conversation: Cenk comes from a product and technology background.
Before Revo, he spent years at Turkcell building products, platforms and technology businesses. As someone who also came into the startup and investment world through product, I found this part of his story especially interesting.
And one story from those years really stayed with me.
Cenk’s team had developed a SIM-based mobile wallet solution and deployed it at Swisscom. It worked, and according to Cenk was well ahead of the competing solution. Yet Swisscom didn’t buy it.
Cenk recounts the person leading the project telling him that she knew Turkey as a great holiday destination, but couldn’t get past the idea of buying technology from Turkey. Swisscom chose the second-best solution instead.
I found that story surprising — even shocking.
For Cenk, it became something of a personal mission: he had seen firsthand the quality of Turkish technology talent and wanted to prove that it could compete globally.
From Turkish startups to global companies
That motivation also helps explain how Revo’s investment strategy has evolved.
Fund I was much more Turkey-focused. By Fund II, Revo had become deliberate about helping its companies go global. Cenk puts it memorably in the conversation: “Turk to Turk never sells good; it should be Turk to global.” Of Fund II’s 19 investments, he says 16 now have their headquarters outside Turkey.
With Fund III, that thesis is evolving again. Revo is not only helping companies from Turkey expand globally. It is also looking for Turkish founders who are already abroad and trying to reconnect their companies with Turkey — particularly by helping them establish R&D operations here.
That strikes me as an important evolution in how we think about the Turkish startup diaspora. A founder moving to San Francisco doesn’t represent talent that Turkey has “lost.” A globally headquartered company can still build a substantial engineering organization in Turkey.
We cover much more in the conversation — Revo’s three funds, institutional investors such as IFC and EBRD, exits, what Cenk sees Turkish founders getting wrong, Revo’s new San Francisco presence, and even the AI systems Revo is building internally for sourcing and portfolio management.
But for me, the thread running through it all is the same one that started with that Swisscom experience: how do you take the technology talent that exists in Turkey and give it the platform to compete globally?
Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify
🎙️ TRVC 37: From $15M to $300M: Building Revo Capital | Cenk Bayrakdar