To Be an Entrepreneur, You Must Be Able to Create

This article is written by Nardine B. M’barek, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Cem Soysal is the CEO of Inventram, which is a deep technology investment company, their objective is to commercialize disruptive technologies and technological innovations. Mr. Soysal has 24 years of extensive experience in IT and Telecom sectors. He is also an Angel investor who invests in businesses within Turkey and beyond.

To Mr. Soysal, being an entrepreneur means being able to create something from scratch. The challenge that he had set for himself is to start companies and businesses from scratch in Turkey. He is now being called a “corporate entrepreneur” after many years of acting professionally in the field of entrepreneurship and business.

Inventram was launched in 2010, is a small investment company. It has been backed up by the largest groups of Turkey from day1, which usually help entrepreneurs make businesses, as well as making their names well-known by the community, and to execute whatever your business plan is. In 2017, Inventram completed around six company investments, and around 41 patent investments.

Inventram is a little different than the other Venture Capitals, they are more into deeper technologies. The company is the first of this kind of business. Their motto was to put their money and time into these deep technologies. As a business Angel investor, Mr. Soysal is also putting his money into online, mobile, and gaming technologies as well, which is a little bit different that Inventram, they look more after the paradigme shifters of Turkey, since they do not want Turkey to be in a vicious conflict of competing with far eastern countries for cheapest labor. 

Inventram team handpicked all those companies and high tech projects from all the universities and techno-parts of Turkey. Today, they are doing high quality, and high tech investments such as robotic hence, sensitivity technology like wearable display. They are quite interested in the fields in which Turkey is not really known like nano-technology.

Mr. Soysal also shared with us details about the foreign partnership that Inventram has with other foreign investment companies. This relationship allowed Inventram to make two giant groups closer to each other, which are the Mitsui Holdings from Japan, and Koç Holding. Inventram now is the roof for these two groups to establish a relationship and get together, since they can produce many things.

This idea of partnership was created in 2015, and executed in 2017. This would be a very fruitful relationship not only for Koç Holding, but also for Turkey as a whole, since Japanese people are very hardworking, decent people, and very far ahead of Turkey in terms of technology. 

The negotiations concerning this partnership were so intense to start with. Mr. Soysal even traveled to Japan in order to find partners for Inventram in the field of technology, since the country has many successful tech companies to look at. The interest in technology is mutual in both countries since even Japan wants to bring technology from Turkey to Japan, that is why this partnership is beneficial for both countries.

Mr. Soysal mentioned how this partnership means a lot to him, and Inventram as a whole since it is the largest deal that they have reached so far with foreign groups. He also believes that this deal will benefit Turkey a lot in terms of technology, and even concerning its general relationship with Japan. 

https://vimeo.com/208897333