In an effort to cover the Turkish Private Equity Industry - for the promotion of Entrepreneurship, the private equity asset-investment model, and the communication thereof.
Turkven Invests in Tekin Acar Cosmetics
27 May 2008
This will probably not be the last post regarding Turkven Private Equity and its disbursement of its $400+ Million TPEF II Fund. Turkven's latest investment consists of Tekin Acar Cosmetics - the largest selective cosmetics retailer in Turkey with over 40 stores located in 15 cities and a market share of 35%. The Company sells perfumes, skin care, make-up, sun and other products and employs approximately 400 people.
Turkven Managing Director Seymur Tari added: "The Company is well positioned to reach its operational and financial targets with an investment budget of YTL20 million and no financial debt." Turkven Principal Sepin Sinanlioglu Inceer added: "We plan to increase the total number of stores to 100, our market share to 40% and our turnover to YTL150 million."
Commenting on the transaction, Chairman Tekin Acar said: "Our partnership with Turkven will help us better execute our ambitious growth plan in the coming years. Our goal is to increase our market share through geographic expansion and to continue to offer a wide selection of selective cosmetics products to our customers at affordable prices."
Turkven was advised by Baker & McKenzie, Paksoy, Davutoglu (legal), GBC (industry) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (financial & tax).
The Sellers were advised by Standard Unlu (financial advisor), Guzeldere and Karaosmanoglu (legal).
It would be interesting to know what is the timeline for this investment with the growth of stores and turnover or what equity stake was taken by Turkven, but unfortunately this information was not given.
A Challenge To All Hackers: Get the Internet Banned in Turkey!
24 May 2008
For the fourth (possibly 5th, God who knows?) time, YouTube has been blocked/banned in Turkey. When accessing the site, a "blocked" message appears and states that YouTube has violated certain laws both on the 30th of April and May 5th, of which it still has not revoked the "incriminating" videos. In these crazy times - have the majority of us become too complacent, that we don't even question why anymore?
I think it is time to talk about ideas. Not only having innovative ideas, but the freedoms to foster, fester, and then free those ideas across the globe. Lately, these freedoms have been under threat. I'm not talking about the freedom to watch cute kittie videos either.
What is a blog? A blog is a free-form of expression. Our synapses fire, and whatever we think, we write for the whole world to see. It is simplicity, it is human, it is beautiful.
What is Wordpress? It is a community-based blogging platform, that only until recently, after 7 months, has finally been unblocked in Turkey.
What is YouTube? YouTube is a free-form social community that allows all forms of video expression to the rest of the world. YouTube has been blocked 3-4 times in the last year by Turkish courts for defamation according to certain laws.
Other sites that still are blocked consist of the CNN Ticker/blog. Turkey has also blocked the Flickr Blog in the past, but now it is up and running.
It is time to talk of ideas - ideas that transcend any filters, blocks and laws. It is time for common sense to take a stand.
Throwing Down the Gauntlet!
That is why I'm calling on all hackers to fight this. How you may ask? No, we're not going to form a new party, but yes, it is in the same spirit. We're going to shut down the majority of the Internet in Turkey!
First Objective: Facebook!
Hacker_Project_1 - Design an application on the Facebook API that in a sense will get Facebook blocked and banned in Turkey. I'll let you use your imagination on this, but it shouln't be too hard to get thousands of people to join a community application that sends favorite animals to friends with the heads of famous Turkish historical figures (if you get my meaning). Once this is done, we can move this to other social community platforms.
Second Objective: All Blogging Platforms!
Hacker_Project_2 - What was already done for Wordpress can be done again. It should be fairly simple to publish a blog post on multiple platforms as well as pages. This will most certainly cause the root domains to get blocked.
Third Objective: Move on to other easily accessed and popular websites. If we have to form a public open source community on this, we should.
I'm not asking you to break the law here such as breaking into secure servers, I'm simply trying to prove a point that by using network and community resources legal in the rest of the world, you can get websites blocked in Turkey.
By bringing the (cursed and wicked) Internet to its knees, the government will be forced to acknowledge these loosely interpreted but strictly enforced laws to control the Internet are infringing on the citizens' rights and freedoms to access information and the freedom of expression. It is too bad that politics has come into this, but for Turkey to progress in education, for children to grow up and be innovative, and for democracy, we must tell our politicians that the laws that our judiciary are interpretating (independently? - I think not) - are essentially putting Turkey in the same category as Iran, China, and North Korea.
Turkey Cannot Control the Internet: Let Rives be the Emperor!
What is TED? TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a conference - an invitation-only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration.
Let me introduce Rives - a poet, a spoken-word artist. He wants to be the emperor of the Internet. Let's laugh a little, and forget that others have tried to control an Internet that will never be controlled.
Hosted by GoldenHorn Ventures, I'm very curious to see the spectacular things that will get started as a result of this first conference. This is truly great news for Turkey, the Turkish VC industry, and Turkish entrepreneurship.
From their website:
This, therefore, seems an excellent moment in time to bring together an international group of business and investor practitioners – some “old hands” at business creation and financing, others, enthusiastic to learn and participate, and to develop a clearer understanding of what is going on in emerging markets, what best practices can be adopted and how knowledge and expertise can be transferred with the support of public and private interests, institutions and businesses, to oil the wheels and enable more effective progress for the good of all.
Who Should Attend?
Entrepreneurs with a serious interest in early stage business and entrepreneurial finance in emerging markets
National and International Investors and those advising investors in larger funds on capital allocations
Banking Leaders
Executives of Multinational Corporations with strategic decision responsibility for the development of Emerging Markets
Leaders of Institutions, such as Universities and Business Schools with special interests in business creation, technology transfer and entrepreneurial finance
Those in Government and key regional development agencies concerned with economic development and business and job creation
The Agenda will be as follows:
9 June
9:30 - 10:00 Registration and Coffee
10:00 - 11:00 Welcome and Introductory talk
11:30 - 12:30 The Nature of Financing in Emerging Markets
- What would make a qualified VC from LP point of view?
- Is the model of funding right? ( from an LP point of view) What else is missing? How can it be improved?
- What could be done to create a VC environment in emerging markets?
- What role each party wants to play in the regions?
12:30 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 15:00 Problems of emerging market entrepreneurs
- What are the common mistakes of Venture Capitalists in the Emerging markets?
- Why do they fail?
15:00 - 16:30 Networking time or "chat" groups around specific topics
- Company going global
- Fundraising Tips from LPs, New Model suggestions from Fund Managers
- Managing Portfolio Companies
- How to exchange information for more Success Stories
16:30 - 17:30 View from local VC'S; what is it they are doing right/wrong, strategies, commonalities between emerging market conditions
- What are the Investment Strategies?
- What do we need to make success stories? Is it the fundraising/ dealflow/ managing portfolio companies/ exits the most time consuming? / where you need partners / help?
- What are the wrong models for venture capital in emerging markets?
- What are the right strategies for venture capital in emerging markets, which brought success to your companies?
Free time until dinner for "networking"/marketplace activities
20:00 - 22:00 Dinner and Networking Events
10 June
9:30 - 10:30 The ecology of emerging markets
11:00 -12:00 Angel Networking and cross-border angel activities
Buffet lunch
Please forward this post on to those who you feel may be interested.
The announcement highlights Turkey once again for its growing Internet space and interest by foreign private equity. With sources close to the deal, it appears Yemeksepti.com will use the investment to move its service into Eastern Europe.
According to the Milliyet article, it looks like other investors consisted of Raymond James Türkiye Yatırım Bankacılığı General Manager Gökçe Kabatepe, Mondus.net’s founder, internet investor and GP of iLab Ventures - Cem Sertoğlu, as well as Çağan Şentürk and Başar Başaran, taking on some share of equity.
We first learned of European Founders Fund and their interest in Turkey when they became limited partners of Turkish Venture Capital Fund, LeVenture. Also, we must also remember that EFF had invested in Cember.net just before it was sold to XING.
Publisher: Jon H. Black TurkVCAnalyst: With 10 years experience working and studying in Turkey, an MS in Financial Economics, Jon H. Black is a published writer of multi-sector industries in oil & gas and banking & finance. In addition, he has offered due diligence services, dealflow sourcing and aiding private equity professionals entry into the Turkish market through entrepreneur and industry introductions.
For information on services, questions or suggesions, please contact: Location:
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Publisher: Jon H. Black
