FIRST UNICORN?

Last week began with the groundbreaking announcement from Nasdaq-listed Zynga of its purchase of Turkish mobile gaming company Peak in a $1.8 billion deal. It was the largest ever exit made by Turkish entrepreneurs.

The closest to it was Trendyol’s 75 percent acquisition by Alibaba in 2018 for a consideration over $700 million.

Other landmark exit deals were YemekSepeti’s sale to Delivery Hero for $589 million in 2015 and the 25 percent sale of Hepsiburada to Abraaj Capital for $400 million in the same year. Almost all those companies are now valued over $1 billion. As of June 2020, there are more than 400 unicorns around the world. Turkey has none, yet. But the race to become a unicorn, meaning a valuation over one billion dollars over a funding round of a private startup, is still underway.

We spoke with several VC executives and industry players to compile a list of potential candidates that are generally based in Turkey or those that moved their headquarters abroad but still employ the majority of their workforce here.

There are Turkish citizens who have established startups elsewhere that could be closer to unicorn status, especially those in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the U.S.

The food delivery startup Getir, which promises to deliver in 10 minutes anywhere in Istanbul, is regarded as the most promising company for achieving unicorn status. The startup, established by NazŨm Salur, at least doubled in size during the pandemic.

However, we need to see if that growth is sustainable after the restrictions are lifted, a VC exec said. The company is planning to increase its geographical footprint in other parts of the world with a new funding round that could bring it closer to becoming a unicorn.

Modanisa, an online condervative fashion retailer and Insider, an online conversion and optimization services provider that has a female co-founder, Hande Cilingir, are other promising startups. And there are others - Hazelcast, Nesine.com, Good Job Games - with valuations over hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, we have learned.

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