12 Jul 40 İTÜ Çekirdek startup received an investment of 71 million dollars in the first half of the year!
İTÜ Çekirdek startups have surpassed $270 million in investments to date!
Supporting entrepreneurs holistically, İTÜ Çekirdek facilitates global market channels for their products and services, designs and provides all necessary services for rapid development. In the first half of the year, the 40 startups within İTÜ Çekirdek received $71 million in investments. While software ventures accounted for 85% of the funded startups in the first half of the year, the total valuation of supported entrepreneurs has exceeded $3 billion to date!
Under the leadership of İTÜ ARI Teknokent, Türkiye hub for entrepreneurship and innovation, İTÜ Çekirdek has been supporting entrepreneurs’ journeys since 2011 as the ‘World’s Best University Incubation Center’. Supporting an average of 500 startups annually, İTÜ Çekirdek contributes millions of dollars in added value to the Turkish economy. Over 13 years, İTÜ Çekirdek has nurtured 4,500 startups, facilitating the establishment of 1,600 companies. Demonstrating its success by aiding startups in creating employment for 11,000 individuals and securing investments exceeding $270 million. Adding to these achievements, the 40 İTÜ Çekirdek startups that emerged since the Big Bang event in December 2023 have collectively received $71 million in investments. Among the funded startups, 25 received pre-seed investments, 10 announced seed investments, while 4 received post-seed funding and 1 secured Series B investment.
Moreover, İTÜ Çekirdek has supported not only local startups but also international startups under the name ITU Seed for the past three years. Providing opportunities and services to international startups, it guides them in expanding globally from Istanbul. ITU Seed has attracted applications from over 900 startups across more than 80 countries, with 87 startups accepted into the program.
85% of the startup that received investment are software entrepreneurs.
Attila Dikbaş, General Manager of ITU ARI Teknokent, emphasizing the responsibility of being an Impactful Incubation Center and continuing to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem at ITU Çekirdek, stated, “This year, with TÜBİTAK converting the award of the BİGG program into investment, BİGG entrepreneurs have made themselves known in the investment ecosystem. Twenty of our entrepreneurs received investments from the TÜBİTAK BİGG Fund, while two completed their investment rounds through Crowdfunding. Among the remaining 18 startups, two received Corporate Venture Capital (CVC), two received corporate investments, and the remaining 14 received investments from Venture Capitalists (VC) and Angel Investors. Software entrepreneurs constitute 85% of the ventures that received investments. Of our funded startups, nine focus on health technologies & life sciences, six on the energy sector, five on automotive technologies, and five on the education sector. The remaining 15 ventures primarily operate in fintech, insurtech, cleantech, food technologies, and e-commerce. At ITU ARI Teknokent, in line with our mission to support local and global entrepreneurs at every step, we define ourselves as ecosystem builders. At ITU Çekirdek, we open our doors wide to every entrepreneur, carrying their successes forward together.”
You can apply to be part of the Core Impact at itucekirdek.com.
In the first half of 2024, 40 ITU Çekirdek startups received investments as follows:
- Intenseye: An artificial intelligence platform that reduces accident and injury risks in factories and warehouses. Last investment received: $64,000,000.
- Lumnion: A modeling and behavioral pricing optimization platform based on GLM and other algorithms for insurance pricing. Last investment received: $1,000,000.
- Winfluencer: Winfluencer is a fully automated marketplace that brings together influencers and e-commerce sites through a revenue-sharing model, offering a next-generation technological solution for brand-influencer collaboration. Last investment received: ₺10,000,000.
- Plantero: Focuses on plant-based proteins and concentrates as alternatives to animal-derived foods. Last investment received: ₺4,450,000.
- Red Jacket: Uses VR for gamification in the field of physical therapy. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Elaves: Includes screenless smart toys that support second language acquisition for children aged 0-3, involving parents in the language acquisition process through a parent mobile app that manages toys. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Lingify: Develops supportive applications for aphasia therapy using artificial intelligence. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Nexustech: Anti-jamming and anti-spoofing device for GNSS receivers. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Pixel Cybernetics: A cognitive social assistant, a smart home service robot. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Enviculture: Creates biodegradable fertilizers encapsulated from organic waste with controlled release. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Orbycra: Develops AI-assisted personalized medical graft and graft mold systems. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Turnavi: Develops multi-purpose software for multimedia analysis and design of marine vehicles. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- CompE: Designs composite blade profiles for energy-efficient cooling systems. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Numedyne: Develops engineering software and numerical analysis solutions. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Deepwise: Digital Twin Platform. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Postut: A mobile learning platform that liberates vocational education through on-the-job experience sharing. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Cyberware Secure Gateway: Provides vehicle-level central cybersecurity solutions for automotive road vehicles, enabling the detection and elimination of cyber attacks. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Bita Enerji: Uses AI-based solutions to improve maintenance periods and reduce power outages in energy distribution lines. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Pina Minds: Autonomous Learning Robot. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- ARTER: UWB radar-based search detection device for subsurface live detection. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Tekno Sürüm: AI-supported herd management platform. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- İletmen: Micro-delivery solution. Optimizes delivery operations starting from restaurants with software that has been improved. Last investment received: $850,000.
- Plastic Move: Produces bioplastic raw material from 5 billion waste breads disposed of in 1 year in Turkey, which can be lost in nature in 3 months. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Exar: Offers solutions to various sectors from virtual factory tours to 3D configurators using AR, VR, and XR technologies, integrating technologies such as AI, IoT, and cloud systems to provide companies with 360-degree solutions for the future. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Pubinno: Smart beer tap that ensures quality standardization in keg beer service and increases efficiency by preventing waste. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Pickies: A marketplace application that allows users to pre-order take-away orders online at local cafes and restaurants, allowing them to collect their orders without waiting in line and combining this with socialization. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- eGaranti: A web application that offers cloud-based solutions to companies for consumers to control warranty processes from a single panel. Last investment received: ₺18,265,700.
- CoolREG: High-performance heat pump technology that can provide heating, cooling, and hot water needs in a single device. Last investment received: ₺7,225,000.
- Postuby: An AI-supported practical social media content management platform that eliminates the problem of “What should I share on social media?” Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Arventek: The cloud-based RemoteSite platform it has developed creates a high-accuracy 4D digital twin of the construction site from images taken by drones, managing challenging tracking operations in construction sites more quickly and efficiently by understanding drone data with artificial intelligence. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Copetract: A platform that easily transforms contracts into smart contracts by digitalizing them. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Sensemore: Produces the world’s smallest and easiest-to-use vibration sensor. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Rumitech: Produces smart pole solutions that convert energy obtained from the sun and wind into sustainable living sources, thus sustaining itself. Last investment received: $250,000.
- Harcy: Develops thermal insulation material for building facades using textile waste. Last investment received: $350,000.
- WordBaze: A content provider that offers users a more free and personalized learning experience. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- SOWEC: An energy system technology that converts wave energy into electrical energy. It installs the innovative product on a suitable coastline and converts the potential energy of the wave into electrical energy. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Asemli: Software that keeps special children in the loop of education in both educational centers and homes while entertaining and teaching. Last investment received: ₺900,000.
- Hummingdrone: Offers AI-focused aerial imaging, mapping, analysis, and autonomous drone solutions for agriculture and energy sectors. Last investment received: undisclosed.
- Clypp: Allows visual process documentation supported by video recordings and screenshots for workplaces. Last investment received: €1,000,000.