That's right. This last week, Web 1.0 auction goliath Ebay just purchased a stake in the Turkish brand of Internet auctions - Gittigidiyor.com. There is no official word yet as to what percentage stake was acquired or for how much. My contacts at AccessTurkey's iLab Ventures, who had a funding round with Gittigidiyor are remaining tight-lipped about their exit.
According to the Ebay press release, Gittigidiyor.com has more than 400,000 listings and is one of the leading players on the Turkish online trading market. GittiGidiyor.com was founded in 2000 by Serkan Borancili, Burak Divanlioglu and Tolga Kabatas and is headquartered in Istanbul - employeeing more than 60 employees.
The press release also mentions that Turkey has over 17 million internet users and growing. This represents a quarter of the Turkish population. In addition, Turkey represents Ebay's 37th market entry to obtain a local presence.
Unfortunately, since Gittigidiyor is a privately-held company, we have no indication of financials. iLab Ventures acquired a stake in Gittigidiyor.com in February of 2006 and has other Turkish Internet companies in their portfolio. My question is whether this is the start of a Turkish Internet shakeout of other international acquisistions, since the IMKB has not proven to be a great exit ground or fund raising venue for Turkish Internet startups. So far, no one is grandstanding yet pertaining to this exit. We'll have to wait and see, but congratulations are definitely in order.
 Technorati Tags: Gittigidiyor.com, AccessTurkey, iLab Ventures, Serkan Borancili, Deal Flow, Turkey, Burak Divanlioglu, Tolga Kabatas, EbayLabels: AccessTurkey, acquisitions, exits, iLab Ventures
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Publisher: Jon H. Black
This is definitely an important milestone for Turkish entrepreneurs. Few other acquisitions in the last 6 months:
- Nokta Internet acquired izlesene.com
http://www.webrazzi.com/2006/12/16/izlesenecom-artik-noktanin/
- Nokta Internet acquired blogcu.com http://turk.internet.com/haber/yazigoster.php3?yaziid=17950
There are certainly a number of internet companies which are good candidates for acquisition for either late local or new foreign entrants.