Here are the 15 internet entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010!
Etohum announces the new internet entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010. The 15 entrepreneurs selected among 1500 applicants will participate into a 4-day etohum Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in February, in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya.
Bringing the entrepreneurs who have knowledge and business idea on the new economy together with companies and professionals who may make investments in this area, etohum announced 15 Internet entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010. Announced at a meeting held in the Bahçeşehir University, on January 30, with the participation of Ziya Boyacıgiller, founding partner of Airties; Mevlüt Dinç, founder of Sobe, and Ali Abhary and Dave Dorner, founders of Biletix as speakers, 15 entrepreneurs are entitled to participate into the 4-day etohum Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in February, in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya.
Established with the aim of increasing the number of the internet companies in Turkey, supporting the entrepreneurs, and providing a marketplace for the entrepreneurs and the investors to create and develop the internet ecosystem, etohum followed a meticulous process to select 15 internet entrepreneurs to be invested into. Having received applications from 1500 internet entrepreneurs in 2009, etohum selected 200 candidates in the first phase and subjected them to face-to-face interviews to shortlist 40 candidates.
15 entrepreneurs were selected following the presentations made before an advisory board composed of 16 members, including Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, founders of Yemeksepeti.com; Burak Divanlıoğlu and Serkan Borançılı, partners of GittiGidiyor.com; Aydonat Atasever, founder of Cimri.com; Tümay Asena, the CEO and partner of Nokta A.Ş.; Emre Kurttepeli, founder of Mynet; Hasan Yalçınkaya, founder of Pilli.com; Cumhur Kuşçuoğlu from Esas Holding, and Erdem Yurdanur, founding partner of Mackolik.com.
15 entrepreneurs to be invested into in 2010 are as follows:
• Roodbox.com: Developed by Ulaş Akpınar and Osman Özmen, two undergraduates of the Bilgi University, Department of Advertising, this project is a unique seconds game, which shares a certain percentage of the advertising revenue with the viewers of the advertisement.
• Anneysen.com: Established by Pınar Şimşek and Aylin Çakır, graduates of the Boğaziçi University, Department of Business Administration, Anneysen.com is a social networking site for mothers and mothers-to-be.
• Tvdegordum.com: Co-founded by Erkin Günay and Canan Özkal, Tvdegordum.com is a platform enabling the televiewers to obtain information on the brand, model, and points of sale of the products they saw on TV shows or series and to buy them.
• Karniyarik.com: Established by Siyamed Sınır, Kaan Meralan, and Doğuş Ertemur, Karniyarik.com is a vertical search engine enabling its users to find any priced thing they look for on Internet.
• Balerin.com: Established by Lütfi Gündüz, Balerin.com is a unique e-business enterprise focused on a particular market segment, with the aim of being the largest shopping website in the Turkish cosmetics industry. It sells only cosmetic products and offers mainly the most affordable prices on Internet.
• YollaYolla.com: Developed by Göktuğ Okan Oğuz and Haldun Uraz Boralılar, this project is a membership platform where users have the opportunity to try and use the products they have a yearning for.
• DersVerilir.net: Founded by Burak Tuyan, DersVerilir.net aims to bring the tutors and the students or the parents together.
• Filoline.net: Established by two experienced partners, Bertan Özdemir and Burçak Sayınsoy, this project is a platform arranging the communication, information flow and trade between the vehicle owners and service and products providers.
• Grupanya.com: Established by Can Mustafa Köne, Baran Dilberve, and Onur Yıldırım, Grupanya.com was originated from the idea of enabling people to purchase the activities, which they have wanted to do but found it expensive, at such prices that they cannot find anywhere else, when a certain number of participants have been attained.
• Ofansif.com: Developed by Çağatay Kıyıcı, Ogan Güner, and Reha Erbatura, this project is a “social network” and “social media” site where soccer fans come together and meet all their information and sharing needs related to soccer on a single platform.
• Bogazharbi.com: Developed by Ali Murat Sürmen, Berkan Uslu, Burak Çavundurluoğlu, Hasan Alpay Yasin, İlhan Yılmaz, and Ömer Emre Özen, it is a 3D video game project on Dardanelles War. Designed in the First Person Shooter (FPS) category, the game represents the battlefields with the most real-like scene designs, models, and animations.
• Dressar.com: Carried out by two senior students of the Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Computer Engineering, Halil Akın and Mehmet Arıkan, this project enables the customers to try on clothes easily on computer, through video camera (Augmented Reality). Due to this enterprise, customers can try on the catalogues of dozens of stores without going out and order the products they want to buy via Internet.
• Sopido.com: Established by Murat Kaya and Onur Yüksel, Sopido.com is a social shopping website, which profiles products rather than persons, contrary to the social media, and thus gathers the brands and products together in a single medium to which the users can access from anywhere they want.
• Nefius.com: Established by Fatih Bugan, Nefius.com is a “Concept-Centered Data Organization” system. It is an innovative infrastructure, which can be used in many areas where information is processed. It rearranges the Internet content in various ways by subjects and the expectations of the users; shortens the access time to information, and reinforces the content with new information.
• Lorientalis.org: Carried out by Deniz Şen, Ersin Ateş, and Yusuf Avcı, this project is an Internet platform, which aims to encourage individuals to be a part of the environmental issues and create socially responsible and eco-sensitive communities.
Burak Büyükdemir, founder of etohum, talked on the matter as follows: “Founded with the aim of bringing the internet entrepreneurs together with investors and supported by leading actors of the industry, such as GittiGidiyor.com, Yemeksepeti.com, Nokta.com, Mynet, Reklamz, and Mackolik.com, etohum enabled 10,000 people to come together through more than 100 meetings held within 2009. Moreover, more than 50,000 people were reached and introduced with all the activities of etohum, with the 24/7 broadcasting of etohum.tv on Internet. etohum also guided new entrants with various camps we organized. Last year, 2 companies, which had gone through etohum process, found its angel investors. Pabbuc.com and Ortakantin.com were incorporated with their new investors and started looking forward into the future more expectantly.”
Burak Büyükdemir continued his comments as such: “Most probably, many expect from the candidates such projects as production of the oxygen which will go to Mars, a nanotechnology innovation or a search engine excelling Google. However, there are not any such projects among the 2010 candidates of etohum because, at etohum, we focus on investors rather than ideas. That is the underlying idea of the ‘entrepreneur – investor rendezvous’ theme. In other words, people come together through etohum. At etohum, we believe that people are more valuable than the ideas. This certainly does not mean that there will not be any new and creative ideas. We will also see many new and innovative projects over time. There is not any reason why we cannot see the business models we read about in developed countries. We just have to work harder. We will all get better each year.”
15 entrepreneurs to be invested into will participate into the etohum Entrepreneurship Camp in February!
Entrepreneurs supported by etohum will participate into a 4-day Entrepreneurship Camp to be held in Rixos Premium Belek, Antalya, in February, with the sponsorship of Rixos Hotels. Training the entrepreneurs on various areas from drawing up a business plan to making presentation to the investors, the camp will also entertain the well-known and successful names of the e-business industry as guests. Ali Sabancı, founder of the Pegasus Airlines; Burak Divanlıoğlu, Serkan Borançılı, and Tolga Kabataş, founders of GittiGidiyor; Nevzat Aydın and Melih Ödemiş, founders of yemeksepeti.com; Emre Kurttepeli, founder of Mynet; Sina Afra, Turkey representative of eBay; Tümay Asena, founder of the Nokta Internet Technologies; Erdem Yurdanur, founder of Mackolik.com, and Sedat Kapanoğlu, founder of eksisozluk.com, will meet the new Internet entrepreneurs and share their experience with them.