28.09.2017
Designed by Kuveyt Turk in cooperation with Workinton, Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship is unveiled. 10 technology-based startups selected from hundreds of projects as the initial phase began to realize their projects at full speed.
Aiming to grow and develop new ideas for the economy, Kuveyt Turk introduced to the public Lonca Girisimcilik Merkezi (Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship), the first phase of this application, founded in cooperation with Workinton. Both Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship and 10 projects selected from hundreds of entries were promoted in a ceremony held at Astorio Branch of Workinton. The selected 10 startups began to turn their technology-based scalable business ideas into sustainable commercial activities at full speed at Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship.
One of the most precious examples of cooperation between the banking industry and the other industries sharing common business fields with it, Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship ensures young entrepreneurs to receive support from its team of mentors, advisors, entrepreneurs supported by the Center in the past, investors, specialists, and advisors located abroad on all kinds of matters they need.
Irfan Yilmaz, Deputy Managing Director in charge of Banking Service Group of Kuveyt Turk, delivered a speech at the ceremony to emphasize: “This year Kuveyt Turk organized
Hackathon in order to support youngsters who expected their different ideas to be directed, to help their projects to be realized, for the first time. Now we are launching Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship that will contribute to development of new ideas. The announcement we had made last month attracted projects from approximately one thousand entrepreneurs. The jury selected 10 of those projects, and their creators have begun to work on them at full speed.”
Giving information about Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship, Irfan Yilmaz said: “Named after the
lonca founded as a guild for Anatolian tradesmen and artisans by the Seljuks in medieval times, this Center for Entrepreneurship will make the master-apprentice system survive through mentors. This center provides entrepreneurs with many facilities including training, advising, a multi-locational incubation center, an acceleration program and financial investment support for six months. Kuveyt Turk will also become the first bank in Türkiye to launch an investment fund lending initial entrepreneurship capital to startups and technology entrepreneurs.”
Pinar Massena, CEO Workinton, explained in her speech at the ceremony that they unveiled Workinton Incubation Center in June 2017 to make the startups within Workinton more effective and successful, adding that “We ensured the existing ecosystem to be more technique- and success-oriented, and built a platform for it where ideas can meet investors. This process made our path cross with Kuveyt Turk’s. Kuveyt Turk has been providing the real sector with support for about 30 years, and it concluded that the best medium to support new entrepreneurs is Workinton. After a fast decision-making, they resolved to found Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship. Its structure is harmonious with the Incubation Center and the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Workinton. It was Workinton that introduced a 6-member team of mentors to the world of startups, that team will provide advising services to Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship too.”
Names and business fields of the 10 startups selected by Lonca Center for Entrepreneurship:
- Crypto Pos: A payment system allowing sellers and buyers who are willing to collect and pay respectively in crypto monetary units to meet on a digital platform.
- Kobi ATM: A system reducing the costs of installing new ATMs and saving customers from paying high commissions, where customers will be able to withdraw and deposit funds by using small and medium sized businesses as ATMs.
- Analitik: A programmable educational set teaching children above age 3 to create algorithms, to think analytically and to program using the Montessorri principles.
- Smart Factory: A system enabling factories to connect their CNC and PLC controlled machines with the Internet.
- Bisigortaci.com: A marketplace where insurance customers and insurance brokers meet.
- Fosefi: A B2B marketplace where the publishing rights to all kinds of contents of the publishing world, including TV series, films, documentaries, cartoons and reality shows, are traded online at a global scale.
- Ratonik: A multifunctional smart control system for soilless agriculture.
- Compocket: A hardware-software project ensuring measurement devices used in electronics laboratories to be compatible with computers and mobile devices.
- Catchman: An application for mobile devices enabling stores located in shopping malls to offer their products at high discounts to consumers.
- Fulle Gitsin: An application for mobile devices enabling users to pay for fuel at gas stations at a discount without getting off their vehicles.