From gaming to fintech innovators, Türkiye's startups thrived in recent years in a fast-developing investment ecosystem, bolstering the nation's ambition to become a hub of entrepreneurship.
Based inside the technopark of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in the capital city of Ankara, founders of two gaming software companies expressed optimism about the future of Turkish startups, citing state incentives as a driving force.
"Türkiye has a dynamic young population and many startups are created by them. A sole computer is sufficient to create a company," Fırat Erciş, CEO of Software Kingdom, told Xinhua, emphasizing that Turkish software producers are eager to find more funding and market on the global stage.
Since the start of 2024, the Turkish government has started a financing mechanism to maximize the impact of public investments on the startup ecosystem.
Turkish Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır recently said his country is trying to step up its self-dependence on technology in the face of monopolization by global conglomerates.
Kacır noted that from 2020 to 2023, local tech startups received 4 billion U.S. dollars in investments, which accelerated the course of the emergence of Turkish unicorns, referring to startup companies with a value of more than 1 billion dollars.
"We will make sure that 100,000 technology startups are born in Türkiye and 100 of them will exceed 1 billion in value to become unicorns by 2030," Kacır said.
Umut Efiloğlu, co-founder of Gamegine, another startup in the tech park, emphasized the importance of skilled programmers and designers in achieving global success. "Turkish software designers are on a world standard. The presence of highly skilled programmers and designers is essential for a company that wants to enter the global market, and that is why so many (Turkish) unicorns appeared in recent years," he said.
Fırat Erciş expressed concern about the possible "brain drain" because of the ailing economy in Türkiye.
Serkan Ünsal, an Istanbul-based tech writer, said that while Türkiye ranks 15th in the world and 7th in Europe in fintech investments in the first five months of 2024, the country can move up on the list if given the right impetus.