Unicorn

Furnished rental startup Blueground has joined the unicorn club - companies whose value exceeds 1 billion dollars - its CEO and co-founder tells Kathimerini.

Türkiye is working to become one of the centers of technology venture companies in the world, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır has said.

Kacır was in London last week where he met with executives of international venture capital funds managing a total of $30 billion.

Vestbee, one of the leading European platforms for startups, VC funds, accelerators, and corporates, has just published VC Funding In CEE Report - 2Q 2023. According to this quarterly overview, VC trends in the CEE region have been closely mirroring the global downturn as the total value of disclosed funding rounds settled at €560M.

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji might not have the personal wealth of Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, but his level of success as an African entrepreneur bears comparison with any Silicon Valley tech titan.

While still in his twenties, the Nigerian co-founded two "unicorns," an industry term for companies that achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion.

Turkish technology startups drew a total investment of $1.8 billion in 2022 despite a 35 percent decrease in global startup investments, increasing expectations for 2023.

According to a report by StartupCentrum, 322 Turkish startups received an investment of $1.8 billion in 2022, slightly up from $1.6 billion the previous year.

Fintech ecosystem is growing fast in Türkiye and those financial technology companies have the potential to become unicorns, said Ufuk Bilgetekin, head of the Türkiye Payment and Electronic Money Institutions' Association (TÖBED).

After the Central Bank gave its approval to 16 more firms to operate in the industry, the number of authorized electronic money institutions rose to 42.

AloTech, which provides cloud-based call center software solutions on a global scale, is poised to join Turkey's growing list of unicorns, one of its founders has told Daily News in an email interview.

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and D-Market Electronic Services and Trading, the company behind Turkish e-commerce giant Hepsiburada, will jointly establish an artificial intelligence center, Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank said on Sept. 12.

Turkish e-commerce firm Trendyol, backed by Chinese internet giant Alibaba, said yesterday it had entered into agreements to raise $1.5 billion from a number of high-profile investors, valuing the company at $16.5 billion.

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That makes the company Turkey's first "decacorn," a word used for those companies over $10 billion, according to a written statement.

Some 63 Turkish startups received $746 million in investments from abroad during the second quarter of this year, the Turkish industry and technology minister said on July 13.