Martı Among 10 Unicorns to Take Off as Turkish Startups Notch $1.5B Funding
Turkey has entered the billion-dollar investment league in 2021, leaving many European countries behind in venture economy investments, as Turkish startups raised more funding than ever before, Daily Sabah reports.
With more than $1.55 billion in cash handed out to Turkish startups, angel, and venture capital funds, 2021 turned out to be buoyant for the ecosystem not only in the country but across the world, where investments in startups almost doubled in amount, shattering the previous year’s record.
Startups.watch annual report announced this week shows that the size of the total investments rocketed 948% year-over-year and was up 47% in terms of the number of deals since most of those funds were invested in 129 Turkish startups.
One of those investments was in Turkey's micro-mobility start-up Marti, which found itself among the top fundraisers in Turkey in the Q2 of 2021, and among the 10 startups that have collected 90% of the investment amount in 2021 along with Getir, whose delivery app alone accounted for around $983 million, the Dream Games, Ödeal, Trio Mobil, Veloxia, etc.
After raising USD 25mn fresh Capital from Wamda & 212 Venture Capital in 2020, Marti found also itself also among the startups that received $10M+ investment in 2021 and among the Turkish top 10 future unicorn candidates.
To become a unicorn entry, the company needs to reach a valuation of at least one billion dollars.
The report also demonstrates that the country’s metropolis Istanbul continues to experience its golden age in entrepreneurial ecosystem investments after it alone accounted for $1.49 billion of the overall amount and for 218 rounds.
It ranked fourth among European cities in terms of the number of deals clinched in 2021 and 13th receiving the most investments, followed in Turkey by Ankara with 1 million dollars and Bursa with 700 thousand dollars, according to Q2 data.