I sat down with Gülsah Wilke, partner at DN Capital and co-founder of 2hearts, in the first of more than ten mini episodes I recorded at Istanbul Ignited by Slush’d. I’ll be releasing one episode each week over the coming weeks, sharing conversations about founders, capital, and the connections between Turkey and the wider startup world.
DN Capital has roughly 1 billion USD under management and has been around for 25 years, with a track record of 22 exits including Germany’s largest tech IPO with AUTO1, an IPO on the NASDAQ with Remitly, and Germany’s largest AI exit at the time with Cognigy.
More than one diaspora
During our conversation, I recalled an earlier episode of TRVC, the Turkish VC podcast, with Cenk Bayrakdar of Revo Capital. We had discussed an evolution in their investment focus: from Turkish companies operating in Turkey, to Turkish companies expanding abroad, to founders from Turkey establishing businesses overseas.
That last group is often described as “the Turkish diaspora.” But the term can obscure some meaningful differences.
I find it useful to think about at least four overlapping groups:
1. Founders who build in Turkey and then expand abroad.
They may move themselves or part of their leadership team to another market while keeping substantial operations in Turkey. Their connections to talent, customers, and other founders at home are often active and immediate.
2. People who leave Turkey and subsequently become founders.
They may move for education or work and start a company years later. Their businesses emerge from experience gained abroad, while their relationships in Turkey can still shape whom they hire, partner with, or turn to for advice.
3. Second- and third-generation entrepreneurs with Turkish roots.
Their relationship with Turkey may be very different. They may have grown up in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, or elsewhere, and built their professional networks there. We should make room for that experience on its own terms, without assuming that their identity or business ambitions centre on Turkey.
4. Investors, operators, and community builders who connect these worlds.
An ecosystem also depends on people who introduce a founder to a first customer, help recruit an early executive, explain an unfamiliar market, or make an investment. These connections can be valuable long before someone starts a company—and whether or not they ever do.
These aren’t rigid categories. People move between them, and the fourth cuts across the others. But the distinctions matter because each group has different relationships, needs, and ways to contribute.
A founder who has just moved from Istanbul to London might need help navigating an unfamiliar investment community. Someone who grew up in Germany might already know that community well, but have relatively few connections to the technology sector in Turkey.
Calling both “diaspora founders” is a starting point. Understanding their actual experience is what makes a useful connection possible.
What having “two hearts” can mean
Gülsah brings a personal perspective to this discussion. Her parents and grandparents are Turkish, and she described coming to Istanbul as something close to coming home.
She also co-founded 2hearts, a community supporting people with migrant backgrounds in the European technology ecosystem. In our conversation, she describes its practical work: people helping one another with introductions, jobs, questions about setting up a company, and access to investment.
The idea behind the name is simple: having a connection to two cultures can be a source of strength.
That resonates with me. Familiarity with different countries can help someone spot an opportunity others miss, understand a customer differently, or connect people who would otherwise never meet. But those possibilities need relationships through which to become useful.
This is where community building matters. A shared background can open a conversation. Trust, practical help, and repeated interaction turn it into something lasting.
The connections have to work both ways
Gülsah describes Turkey as a “hidden diamond,” pointing to its technical capabilities and the opportunities she sees beyond the sectors for which it is already well known.
That raises a question: how do more people get to see those capabilities for themselves?
Events like Slush’d Istanbul help. They give international investors and operators a chance to meet founders, see what they are building, and develop a more informed view of the market.
But near the end of our conversation, I wanted to turn the question around. Should more Turkish founders also be going out to events and communities abroad? Gülsah’s answer was emphatic: yes.
I think both directions deserve equal attention. We want more investors to come to Istanbul. We should also encourage founders to spend time in the markets where they want to win customers, recruit people, and raise capital.
The value of an international event can unfold over months or years: a conversation that continues, an introduction to a potential customer, a better understanding of how buyers think in another market. Those relationships need time to develop.
Diaspora communities can help make the first introductions. Founders then have to build on them.
Looking beyond familiar sectors
Our conversation also covers DN Capital’s investment approach, its investment in banking technology company Fimple, and Gülşah’s interest in healthcare AI.
Her healthcare example is particularly concrete: helping doctors make sense of patient records that can run to hundreds or thousands of pages. We discuss Evidently and the potential to bring relevant information into a form clinicians can use more readily.
It also leads to a broader point about building across markets. The same technology can face very different conditions depending on the availability of digital records, existing workflows, and the institutions that will use it.
A new conversation each week
This episode is the beginning of a series of short conversations recorded at Slush’d Istanbul. Over the coming weeks, I’ll share more perspectives from the event, alongside my own reflections on what they mean for the ecosystem.
Thank you to Gülsah for sharing her perspective—and for the work she’s doing to connect founders, investors, and communities across borders.