One of the most important investors in the startup ecosystem in Türkiye, Revo Capital, held this week the fourth edition of its "Building Bridges" event, converging hundreds of investors in Istanbul and detailing the potential of the venture capital investment fund.
In addition to Revo Capital’s presentation on investments conducted in previous years and strategic plans based on market dynamics for upcoming years, the event also covered thematic panels on artificial intelligence, female leadership in technology, cybersecurity, fintech, gaming trends and sustainability in energy.
Revo Capital Managing Director Cenk Bayrakdar also announced the target for the launch of the third fund in the first half of this year, worth $100 million.
As part of his opening remarks at the event, he highlighted the importance of building bridges through different communication channels, as he provided comprehensive insight into trends in the tech industry.
"We aim to invest in truly innovative startups, that have a global mindset which are based in Türkiye or Eastern Europe," he told the event, which gathered some 600 investors, entrepreneurs and business people on Wednesday, according to the organizers.
One of the keynote speakers at the event, the managing director for the Equity Business Group of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Dirk Werner pointed out that Türkiye is the country that receives the largest volume of investment from its portfolio.
The financing provided by the EBRD climbed to a new record high of 2.48 billion euros ($2.7 billion) in 2023, he said, detailing the scope of equity investments in the country, while underscoring the physical presence of the bank at places they are operating at.
The Revo Capital event also hosted the head of the Presidency's Investment Office, Ahmet Burak Dağlıoğlu, who provided insights into Türkiye's startup and fintech scene and highlighted the country's track record as a leading investment hub, situated at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.
In his speech, Dağlıoğlu reiterated their aim of elevating Türkiye's share in the international direct investment market from 1% to 1.5%, as part of the 2024-2028 strategy.
"From a longer perspective, you know, since 2003 Türkiye has attracted an increased amount of FDI (foreign direct investment), and especially in recent years, in the post-COVID period we continue our performance. In 2023, we attracted $10.6 billion in FDI," he said, despite "kind of a turbulent year globally, because of the policies of the central banks and conditions in geopolitics, geoeconomics and a new term that emerged, 'slowbalization.'"
On the sidelines of the event, Bayrakdar told Daily Sabah the "main objective of the event was to bring different colleagues from all over the world and try to facilitate Türkiye becoming a tech investment hub," highlighting they had many visitors from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary and even Singapore.
"We have a belief that Türkiye positively surprises everyone visiting and we want to encourage more and more people to invest in Turkish startups," he said.
Answering the question regarding the strong trends in the field, according to which as presented by Revo Capital, the verticalized artificial intelligence apps are set to enlarge by approximately 30% by 2025, he said: "We are at an inflection point and AI, this is like the first days of the internet, every day it was evolving, in good ways or bad ways but with AI in upcoming years we will see so many applications, it will be much more involved in our lives."
"And also infrastructure-wise, there is a great transition to the cloud, but I think AI is one of the main factors that will expedite that in upcoming years," he added while highlighting the importance of keeping up with trends and investing in those.