Turkish entrepreneur’s property startup secures record investment
Tiko, a home-buying startup of prominent Turkish entrepreneur Sina Afra, has raised $65 million in a record Series A investment round as it set its sights on a rollout in other European markets and expansion of its workforce
PICKING up where it left off, the Turkish startup ecosystem started the second half of the year with a record investment agreement.
Tiko, a home-buying startup of prominent Turkish entrepreneur Sina Afra, has raised $65 million in a Series A investment round in Spain to expand internationally.
Tiko is a startup that followed Afra’s Evtiko venture that ended its operations in Turkey in 2019.
Tiko’s investment round is the largest of its kind in Turkey. It beat Dream Games’ $50 million Series A round. The Turkish mobile games startup in late June raised $155 million from investors in a Series B investment round, valuing the business at $1 billion.
Afra’s Evtiko showed that a new model is possible. Afra has proved to all entrepreneurs that even if they fail in their own countries, they should not be discouraged if they believe in the success of their model.
Founded in 2017, Tiko aims to reduce the sales process for property sellers from several months to a week. The startup offers to buy the property at a nominal discount of the sale price, which effectively means the seller can expedite the transaction for a minor financial hit.
The Tiko team runs its real estate operations in Spain through the management and technical operations based in Turkey. Series A investment tour
The venture’s Series A investment round was led by BTOV and Rocket Internet along with existing angel investors Joel Ayala along with Class 5 Ventures and former Voi and Lime executive Noah Khamallah.
The new capital is said to be used for expansion into Portugal as well as enlargement of the company’s workforce from approximately 75 employees distributed between Turkey and Madrid.
While Tiko’s valuation has not been disclosed, it will not be surprising if it reaches a billion-dollar valuation in a Series B investment round.
Explaining the journey they embarked on, Afra underlined that the basic rule of entrepreneurship is to challenge.
“The same management and technical team are at work. It is the same brand as Tiko, except for the “home” (the “ev” in Evtko means home in Turkish), but it can implement a business model in a different market,” he said.
“After all, we knew what we were doing was right. The timing may be early for some markets and right for others. Entrepreneurship sometimes requires striving until the end to find the right path. This is not only limited to finding the product-customer harmony, but sometimes the macro-environment needs to be found,” Afra noted.
“I think we should embrace all startups coming out of our country. We must own it.”
Afra further stressed the need of owning our successful entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and all stakeholders in the ecosystem.
“We are not just a Spanish venture just because we are in Spain today,” he added. “Once we reach France and Portugal tomorrow, we will not be a French venture either. I always look at ‘where is the management.’ Getir is not a Dutch company. It is not a United Kingdom venture either as it is now in London.”
The crucial point underlined by Afra is to embrace the success of startups and to offer better quality human resources and infrastructure to create funds for them.