Turkey’s Tech Startups: Road to Multi-Billion Combined Enterprise Value

After a decade of cultivating talent, fostering innovation, and building investor confidence, the Turkish startup ecosystem achieved its highest enterprise value growing tenfold from US $5 billion in 2018 to a remarkable US $45 billion in 2022.

Of course, just as seen everywhere else on the planet, there have been market valuation corrections in 2023, as the VC winter continues to set in – but what Turkey has been able to achieve in a remarkably short period of time, is head-turning. 

Interestingly, more than 85% of the combined enterprise value comes from tech startups that were founded after 2010 such as Trendyol, Dream Games, Peak Games, Getir and Insider.

Investments in Turkish startups averaged US $50 million to $100 million between 2010 and 2020 – a very modest figure in the global startup landscape; but 2021 marked a seismic shift, when over US $3.1 billion was invested in Turkish startups, surpassing the total investment of the previous ten years, combined (in a single year)! 

This recent increase in funding, driven by both local and international success stories accelerated the rise of unicorns and positioned Turkey prominently on the global innovation map.