Etohum 15 Startups Announced
Etohum which brings together entrepreneurs working in the new economy and the investors and investment companies who can make investments in this field has announced the 15 startups of 2013 which have the highest potential. The following startups are among the 15 which were announced at Etohum Entrepreneurship Summit: Etkitakip, Clover Games, Obilet, Mortaki, Otoredi, Ehil.com, İşkolig, Stajyeri.com, iyiuygulama.com, Kidomini, Cizgitsin, Sharebugg, abcde, Gani Para and Picus Güvenlik.
The “Etohum Entrepreneurship Summit” which has been founded to increase the number of internet companies in Turkey, support entrepreneurs and to create a commercial marketplace in order to create an internet ecosystem and strive to develop it was held in January 26 at Istanbul Technical University. The Etohum 15 list comprised of startups with the highest potential in 2013 were announced during this summit. In addition, Hürriyet Sales and Marketing Group President Tijen Mergen, KAGİDER President Dr. Gülden Türktan, Marjinal Porter Novelli Agency President Asuman Bayrak, Novida Strategic Management Services Founder Işık Aydın Deliorman, Aslı Kurul from Endeavor, Ozan Sönmez from Startup Factory, Umur Çubukçu from Citus Data and İmge Kaya Sabancı from 10.000 Women Entrepreneurs Program attended the summit as speakers.
Investment meetings started with the entrepreneurs announced during the summit. The Etohum 15 startups that were selected this year will attend the 3 day “Startup Turkey” Etohum Camp with the participation of many foreign and local investors at Antalya Rixos Downtown Hotel during February 15-17. A detailed study was carried out in order to determine the internet entrepreneurs that comprise the Etohum 15 list and which will be invested. Over 50 meetings were held by Etohum during 2012 and about 10.000 entrepreneurs attended these meetings. About 1500 startups active in the new economy applied to Etohum and face-to-face interviews were carried out with 300 candidates that were selected from among all the applicants to prepare a shortlist of 40 startups. The entrepreneurs in this shortlist made various presentations to Etohum selection committee and investors during January.
Etohum plays an active role in the new economy and during 2013 it will make investments to startups selected to Etohum 40 during February and March via Etohum Investment Inc..
Etohum 15 startups:
Angelfish Games founded by Murat Deligöz is a game company focused on developing social and mobile games. They have developed Çiz Gitsin, which is the Turkish adaptation of the popular mobile game Draw Something. Çiz Gitsin was ranked number 1 in Apple Appstore in Turkey and became a hit. In a period of 3 months Çiz Gitsin was downloaded 250.000 times.
Ehil.com founded by Cenk Duran and Burak Keskik is an internet platform where consumers easily reach experienced and local service suppliers for their home improvement needs and where service providers reach target customers with less marketing budgets.
Mortaki.com founded by Koç University Computer Engineering department alumni Emir Uluğ is an e-commerce website that manufactures personalized jewels and gems. It has been based on the idea that users would be able to make their own jewelery and gem designs using the about 24.000 combination options based on their desired style, metal and stone options.
ShareBugg founded by Tolga Canözkan, Ozan Küçük and Baturay Tok is a new smart phone application that enables users to share their real life experiences with their friends via social media. Brands can create brand ambassadors using the word of mouth effect of ShareBugg in social media and can increase the loyalty of their customers.
Stajyeri.com has been founded by Mithatpaşa Anatolian High School senior students Onat BENLİ and Kemal AYDIN and is an educational web with an aim to bring together vocational high schools, students and companies. The website enables students to find internships via the ads given by companies and afterwards the website also provides automatic reports to schools. During the past year the website earned awards at various competitions at Istanbul University, EGİAD-Embriyonix and Bilkent Cyberpark with its beta and full versions.
Ganipara is an e-commerce platform allowing companies or individuals to open their virtual stores in a couple of minutes. With Ganipara you can start your free personalized virtual market instantaneously and sell your products via the Ganipara market interface, your website and even your facebook and social pages. Ganipara aims to make e-commerce faster and freer for everyone.
Clover Game Studio is a company founded by 3 computer engineers who want to realize innovative ideas. Clover Game Studio wants to reach the world with new game ideas. To this end, they made an ambitious entrance to this sector with their first game Reveal The Maze and reached a download number of more than 1.000.000.
Iyiuygulama is a social application platform enriched by user experience and interaction providing the correct and most advantageous applications to its members. Iyiuygulama suggestion engine works with a continuously learning infrastructure based on the currently used applications, social behavior and behavior models in addition to the experiences of friends. With iyiuygulama, members reach the best application for their needs; discover the best applications in various categories via lists and have the option to access free and discount applications special to iyiuygulama. Iyiuygulama aims to become the independent and leading reference for ios, android and windows8 users and helps successful application developers to get through the millions of choices and reach their desired target users.
EtkiTakip.com is an engineering company working on Turkish content analysis established by 4 M.Sc. computer engineers who have worked as research assistants at METU. The company focused its work on real time and automatic social media follow-up and analysis and developed a product. Users can follow any subject they want through EtkiTakip.com without any word limit. They can directly interact with whomever they want via different accounts that they signed up in the system. Most importantly, they can see which post has positive, negative or neutral effect without any human interaction.
Picus Security develops innovative method and technologies for the analysis and audit of information security products and was founded by Çağlar Abbasoğlu, Süleyman Özarslan and Volkan Ertürk. Besides the more than 10 years of experience of the founding team on information security and software development, team members also have ongoing Ph.D. studies at METU. Technologies developed by Picus Security test the contributions of the information security investments made by companies to be protected from cyber attacks. Picus products determine security risks before attackers and ensure the protection of the companies from security threats that cause loss of reputation and financial losses.
oBilet.com combines over 60 bus companies in one platform along with large companies such as Kamil Koç, Pamukkale, Ulusoy, Varan. The system brings together these companies and presents the user with the best price option for their desired time interval. Founded by Industrial Engineers from Bilkent Ali Yılmaz and Yiğit Gürocak with the consultancy of Prof. İhsan Sabuncuoğlu, oBilet was established as part of the Bilkent Cyberpark. oBilet started operation in the beginning of September and aims to become the first to be remembered when bus tickets are mentioned.
Otoredi.com is a platform that provides online car rental services to its customers. The website enables customers with car rental needs to easily select the best option from among the multitude of offers and make a reservation.
Kidomini is an e-commerce project providing “almost new” world brand kid products with discounts of up to 80 % and transforming these products which have very short life spans due to the rapid growth of children to cash payments, gift cards or social awareness project donations. Kidomini started its activities based on the fact that 66 % of the clothing bought for 0 – 6 age group is worn only a few times thus purchasing clothes and accessories guaranteed by professional mothers aiming to support the family and country economy as well as decreasing environmental pollution due to excessive consumption.
İşkolig is a free career community where employees can share and receive information regarding companies and jobs – anonymously – thereby providing an insider’s view on the companies.