From a $15 million initial commitment to roughly $300 million under management, Revo Capital has grown alongside Turkey’s venture capital ecosystem.

In this episode of TRVC, I sit down with Cenk Bayrakdar, Founding Partner and Managing Director of Revo Capital, to talk about his journey from Arçelik and Turkcell to becoming one of the pioneers of venture capital in Turkey — and what he has learned across three generations of Revo funds.

Cenk shares the personal experience that helped shape his mission: seeing world-class technology developed in Turkey passed over simply because it came from Turkey. That experience ultimately became part of the motivation behind Revo — backing Turkish technology talent and helping companies compete globally.

We discuss how Revo’s strategy has evolved from Fund I through Fund III, including why “Turk-to-Turk” exits can struggle to generate venture-scale returns, why Revo increasingly helps its portfolio companies establish themselves in global markets, and how it is now reconnecting Turkish founders already abroad with R&D talent and incentives in Turkey.

We also get into the mechanics of building a major VC platform: working with institutions such as IFC, EBRD and EIF; Revo’s hybrid Netherlands–Turkey fund structure; the benefits and constraints that come with DFI capital; and the gap Revo sees in Turkey between abundant seed funding and scarce Series A and B capital.

Cenk discusses several of Revo’s investments and exits, the firm’s expansion into San Francisco, and how Revo is building its own internal AI tools for sourcing startups, monitoring portfolio companies, identifying potential investors and buyers, and finding Turkish founders and talent around the world.

Finally, we talk about recurring mistakes Cenk sees among founders, why fundraising should be an ongoing process, the importance of hiring people better than yourself, what Turkey needs to do to benefit from its growing entrepreneurial diaspora, and where he sees the ecosystem heading over the next five to ten years.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:04 From Arçelik to Turkcell: Cenk’s early career

07:57 From corporate innovation to venture capital

11:23 The experience that shaped Cenk’s mission

13:08 Building Revo: from $15M to $300M

16:50 Why Turkish startups need to go global

18:01 Fund III, the diaspora and bringing R&D back to Turkey

21:22 The benefits — and challenges — of DFI investors

25:04 Why Turkish companies struggle to achieve global valuations

28:08 Turkey’s Series A and B funding gap

30:06 Fund III investments and Revo’s move into San Francisco

34:04 What Turkish founders get wrong

39:03 Exits, secondaries and selling to global buyers

41:01 How Revo is using AI inside the VC firm

43:04 The next 5–10 years for Turkey’s startup ecosystem

45:13 Books, podcasts and the people who made a difference

About Cenk Bayrakdar

Cenk Bayrakdar is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Revo Capital. Before founding Revo, he held senior technology and product leadership roles at Turkcell, where he worked closely with technology companies and helped develop the company’s external innovation ecosystem. Revo Capital has since grown across three funds and has backed companies including Getir, Midas and a wide range of Turkish and Turkish-founded technology businesses expanding into global markets.

About TRVC

TRVC explores Turkey’s venture capital and startup ecosystem through conversations with the investors, founders and ecosystem builders shaping its future.

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Görkem is unequivocal about this: Turkey has the biggest mobile gaming ecosystem in the world. In this episode of TRVC, I sit down with Görkem Türk, Founding Partner of Laton Ventures, to explore how Turkey built its extraordinary gaming ecosystem — and why global investors are paying attention. More than just paying attention: this year so far 75% of all VC investments in gaming companies happened in the Turkish ecosystem.Görkem had a front-row seat to the rise of Turkish gaming during his years at Google, where he worked closely with many of the founders who would go on to build some of Turkey’s most successful gaming companies. That experience eventually led him to launch Laton Ventures, a gaming-focused VC fund that has backed companies including Grand Games and Rotate Lab.We talk about why Turkey has become so strong in mobile gaming, the concentration of global gaming VC investment in the country, and how successes such as Peak, Dream Games and Grand Games have created a growing pool of talent, capital and know-how.Görkem also explains Laton’s unusually hands-on investment model. Rather than simply providing capital, the Laton team can work alongside portfolio companies on user acquisition, marketing, data analysis and growth — operating in some ways more like a gaming company than a traditional VC fund.We also discuss Rotatelab, a gaming company based in Gaziantep with a fully remote team spread across 15 cities in Anatolia; why Turkish gaming could have a broader spillover effect on Turkey’s technology ecosystem; what separates enduring gaming companies from “one-hit” successes; and why Görkem expects Turkish gaming companies increasingly to become acquirers themselves.Finally, Görkem shares his advice for aspiring gaming founders: focus relentlessly on product and marketing, and choose partners who can genuinely help make both better.Chapters00:00 Introduction00:58 From P&G and Google to Turkish gaming04:00 Why Görkem founded Laton Ventures09:29 Why build a global gaming fund from Turkey?11:35 Grand Games, Rotate Lab and the investment strategy17:35 Why global gaming investment is flowing to Turkey21:54 Can gaming transform Turkey’s broader tech ecosystem?26:02 Inside Laton’s hands-on VC model29:13 Rotate Lab: From Gaziantep to a global gaming hit32:01 What separates enduring gaming companies from one-hit wonders35:12 Exits, M&A and the future of Turkish gaming39:19 Görkem’s advice to gaming founders40:53 How big is Turkey’s gaming ecosystem?43:39 Books, podcasts and Görkem’s closing thoughts

Why are global investors paying more attention to Istanbul and Turkey’s startup ecosystem?In this episode of TRVC, I sit down with Şan Yalman, Investment Associate at Intera and co-founder of Istanbul Slush’d, to talk about investing, venture capital, and what it takes to connect Turkey’s founders with the global technology and investment ecosystem.Şan began his journey into venture capital at StartersHub in Istanbul before moving to London, where he joined Intera as its first employee. Today, he invests across private markets, including venture capital funds in the US and Europe, giving him an LP’s perspective on the industry and exposure to funds including a16z, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed and Ribbit.We discuss what LPs learn from investing across different VC funds, why smaller funds can produce extraordinary returns, and the very different economics of managing a $50 million fund versus a multi-billion-dollar fund.But much of our conversation is about Istanbul Slush’d.Şan tells the story of bringing the Slush concept from Helsinki to Istanbul and building an organization largely powered by young volunteers. From the beginning, the ambition was not simply to create another local startup conference, but to build a bridge between Turkey’s entrepreneurial talent and global capital.This year, that means bringing investors and technology leaders from around the world to Istanbul, including people from Accel, Index Ventures, OpenAI and NVIDIA. We talk about the new Investor Day, AI hackathons with OpenAI and Manus, founder-investor matchmaking, and the deliberate effort to put global GPs, Turkish VCs and local founders into the same rooms.We also step back and discuss the Turkish startup ecosystem itself. Şan argues that Turkey has exceptional entrepreneurial talent and can be a particularly demanding place to build a product: Turkish consumers are accustomed to strong digital experiences in areas such as banking and e-commerce. That high bar can be an advantage for founders who eventually want to compete globally.We finish by talking about the growing Turkish technology diaspora, the importance of connecting founders and investors across Istanbul, London, Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Şan’s podcast recommendations—and a memorable story about a stranger who rescued his trip to Slush Helsinki by bringing his forgotten passport from London.**Chapters**00:00 Introduction00:36 Şan Yalman’s journey into venture capital03:45 The LP perspective: investing in VC funds05:18 Why smaller VC funds can outperform06:59 Bringing Slush’d to Istanbul11:12 Building Istanbul Slush’d like a startup14:03 What makes Slush different17:05 OpenAI, Manus and the new AI hackathons19:12 Bringing global investors to Istanbul26:33 Turkey’s startup ecosystem, global expansion and the diaspora33:34 Personal recommendations & a memorable Slush story