Gathering on Thursday and Friday, NuBridge Venture Summit brought together Turkey’s Internet entrepreneurs and companies with leading global Internet investors in Istanbul.
The event aimed to be a platform for sharing knowledge, networking and for developing business relations between entrepreneurs and investors, according to Pamir Gelenbe, founder of NuBridge Ventures, an investment company headquartered in Britain.
“Turkey has a very exciting Internet market,” Gelenbe said at the event on Thursday. “We see great potential in Turkey because it has the world’s 12th largest Internet market. Investments in electronic commerce are on the rise. However, there is insufficient capital. Being aware of this potential, we aim to direct global investors to Turkey.”
Many renowned global investors think of extending or continuing investment studies in Turkey, according to executives of companies that attended the summit.
Accel, an investor in companies such as Facebook, Gameforge, Macromedia, Glam Media; Holtzbrinck Ventures, a leading Internet investor in Germany; and General Atlantic, investor in Lenovo, the largest personal computer producer of China, were represented at the NuBridge Venture Summit. and nbsp;
No shortage of funding
The summit was also joined by other foreign investment companies, which hold a total around $30 billion in funding sources; such as Ventech, Golden Horn Ventures, Wellington Partners, Acton Capital, 3TS Capital Partners, Sardis Capital, TA Associates, Big Bang Ventures, Index Ventures and Endeavor Vision.
Barend van den Brande, founder of Big Bang Ventures, said Turkey has a very interesting dynamic and an innovative population the uses the Internet often, especially in social media. “Turkey is currently the third-largest member of Facebook, which is a significant indicator. The great interest in Facebook and Google encourage us to invest more.”
“We plan to invest where we find the best opportunity, but we do not have a certain investment amount in our mind,” said Harry Nelis, an official from Accel. “We want to work with Turkish entrepreneurs who have a ground breaking potential. Turkish people like to play games on the Web. So we can invest in gaming.”
“Our aim is to provide funding for small companies that are promising. Turkey needs investors to overcome the under-capitalization problem,” said Jan-Gisbert Schultze, managing partner at Acton Capital.