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On September 25, at the Terminal İstanbul Ecosystem Meetup, more than 60 institutions signed a single memorandum of understanding with Terminal İstanbul. Disrupt was one of them.
Ali Samir Oosman, SVP – Strategy, Partnerships & Investments, signed for Disrupt as a venture building partner. He shared the stage with Türkiye's Minister of Industry and Technology, Mehmet Fatih Kacır, and Terminal İstanbul GM Erkan Tuzgen. Alemsah Ozturk, Disrupt's Chief Storyteller, was there with him.
Three things we want to do there.
Bring our ventures into Türkiye. We start by finding growth opportunities, partners and anchor customers.
Build with Turkish talent. A skilled pool of young, AI-first builders.
Create new ventures with Turkish founders. The very best of them.
Four pieces make that possible. Talent. Capital. Infrastructure. Access. Türkiye is building the first three. The partnership gives us the fourth.
Talent is already here.
Türkiye's median age is 35, which makes its population 10 to 15 years younger than many European countries. Close to a million young graduates join the talent pool every year.
The country is bringing in more. TechVisa gets international founders and tech professionals a work permit in about two weeks. More than 5,500 have come through it.
Capital is already moving.
Before 2019, Türkiye had no unicorns. Today it has eight, known as Turcorns. Seven started in Istanbul.
The 2030 target is $100 billion in combined value across the country's Turcorns. Public money is already behind it, with 175 billion lira (about $3.57B) invested in 1,091 startups through public-backed funds.
Infrastructure is being built.
Terminal İstanbul is turning the former Atatürk Airport terminal into roughly 200,000 square meters for technology companies. Offices, incubation, accelerators, prototyping, production and R&D labs, all under one roof. Ideas connect to university research, industrial production and investor capital in the same building. Minister Kacır called it a factory.
The first 5,000 square meters already run. The full terminal is expected to be operational next year.
Access is what the signing gives us.
Talent, capital and infrastructure only matter if you can reach them. In emerging markets, the right partners open the way to talent, customers and capital.
Meta, Google, AWS, Samsung, Microsoft, Trendyol, Rasmal Ventures, Techstars Istanbul, ASELSAN, ROKETSAN and Turkish Technology were in the room too. Across the day, Ali and Alem met startups, investors and partners, including Serkan Turkoglu, Mehru Ozturk, Raad AlJouni and AI 4Impact.
The momentum is real. Terminal İstanbul is a bridge between local founders and global markets. Signing on puts Disrupt on it.
Terminal İstanbul represents a critical step for Disrupt in deepening our engagement across emerging tech hubs globally. We believe Turkey is a massive opportunity with a tremendous talent pool and a large market across all customer segments where many of our ventures can thrive. Ali Samir Oosman, SVP – Strategy, Partnerships & Investments, Disrupt.com
The day ended with Minister Kacır and the delegation touring the site. Türkiye is building. We signed on to build with it.
