2020 Year in Review — Turkish Startup Ecosystem

We announced last year’s figures in Turkish Startup Ecosystem on January 29th. We held an online event to announce the figures and you can watch it on Youtube (It’s in Turkish).

Here are some of the highlights of 2020 :

• Influenced by prominent gaming exits, in 2019 and 2020 the most prevalent new Turkish startups were gaming startups.
• In 2020, graduates from Anadolu University, Middle East Technical University and Yıldız Technical University started the most number of startups.
• In 2020, 165 startups raised a total of 139M USD from angels and VCs, setting a new record for the ecosystem.
• In order to raise funds from foreign investors, increasingly Turkish startups are moving their legal entities overseas.
• In 2020, the largest funding rounds were raised by Insider, Meditopia and Getir respectively.
• In terms of funding raised, the verticals receiving the most investment were SaaS, AI and Marketingtech; in terms of number of deals, SaaS led the way, followed by Fintech and Healthtech.
• Middle East Technical University graduates raised the most number of deals in 2020; Istanbul Technical University graduates raised the highest amount of funding.
• For corporate investing activity, 2020 witnessed new records in terms of both investment amount and investments participated in.
• The share of new female founders fell to 14% in 2020, affected by the rise of gaming startups which tend to be male-dominated.
• The total amount of new funds raised equaled 328M USD in 2020, the largest total funding base to date.
• In terms of total angel and VC funding, Turkey ranked immediately below Poland amongst European countries, maintaining its position in the 1st League.
• Peak Games represented the largest VC-backed exit in Europe in 2020, while also becoming Turkey’s official unicorn.
• Fueled by Peak Games and others, 2020 also became the largest exit year to date.
• At the idea stage, the largest angel investor was again the Turkish government.
• A 250M Turkish Lira fund of funds, the “Regional Development Fund”, was established in 2020.

You can download our Annual Report for Free (It’s in English)