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As it matures, we’re seeing the importance of e-commerce beyond the click. This month we take a look at how the online phenomenon is impacting payments, mergers and acquisitions, and scale. Spoiler: A LOT.
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Turkish Technology Expands
Growth is at the heart of every emerging market agenda. Whether in Brazil, China, India, or Turkey, the focus is keeping the economic engine revving – and consumers buying. Insider, the global leader in predictive modeling and digital customer experience, has helped numerous companies worldwide in better predicting and understanding customer behavior. With a new investment from Silicon Valley based 500 Startups, the company is poised to spread its technology further.
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This month’s addition of ‘we told you so’ Last month, we dived into the state of Turkish fintech. It’s real. The sector continues to expand and, as a result, attract attention and excitement. We’re geeking out on this BKM FinTech Progress report. Check it: “The FinTech investment in Turkey has soared to $29 million in 2016. The same figure was $24.2 million in total between 2012 and 2015. 47% of the amount invested in startups in Turkey was raised by FinTech startups in 2016.” |
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We’re living longer. We’re also getting busier. Technology has helped make that possible. EvdekiBakicim.com is helping to make it easier to find a trained sitter for your baby or a professional minder for your elders. The startup came in first in Webrazzi Arena’s 2016 competition. It recently received angel funding from a group of Istanbul angel investors. Keep pushing those profits forward EvdekiBakicim – and proving that innovation doesn’t always equal technology, but still comes down to making our lives better. |
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“Even though it is close to other European countries, Turkey has a personality of its own….” Amen Kilian. Read on about what else iyzico’s business expansion guru Kilian Thalhammer told The Payers about Turkey’s fintech space. (Spoiler: It’s hot). |
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Germans pick up Greece’s Taxibeat My Taxi, a German ride sharing app owned by Daimler, acquired Athens-based Taxibeat. Tech EU reports that MyTaxi, which Daimler aquired in 2014, has been consolidating the market a lot recently by merging with Hailo. Taxibeat will be integrated with MyTaxi as part of this deal and will likely bolster Daimler's plans to rival Uber in Europe. |
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Saving the EU: payment startup Swedish payment company, Klarna aquired German-based BillPay for about $74million; While the EU is in disarray (we're looking at you Brexit), startups focused particularoy on e-commerce and payments are finding opportunities to work together and scale up. Startups FTW. (Can startups run for POTUS? Asking for a friend.) |
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Search and you will find my product Denmark's Momondo has been shaking up the metasearch vertical for sometime. As the competition for eyeballs only heats up, so, too, has the race to have the best search engines. Priceline, which owns, Kayak, has snapped up Momondo for $550 million IN CASH. But before you get so excited, Skift tells us that this "isn't a huge (deal) compared with Priceline's aquicisition of OpenTable for $2.6 billion in 2016." We expect to see more aquisitions and partnership of this type over the next few years. |
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Egypt at an Inflection Point
The pounding heart of tech in the region
by Karim Hussein Egypt has been buzzing with entrepreneurial activity in recent years with ever expanding new businesses and a rich set of supporting institutions and communities. Egypt offers some unique opportunities within the region driven by a large online consumer population, a highly competitive core technology talent pool, a large untapped opportunity in financial services for an under-banked population and rapidly expanding energy demands driving the need for clean technology. Egypt’s entrepreneurial ecosystem enjoyed some early government support in the last 10 years through several government financed technology funds and government sponsored incubation programs. Since the 2011 revolution, these have been significantly augmented by a growing ecosystem of private startup events, accelerators, incubators, angel networks, venture capital funds and community enablers. There are now over 20 accelerators/incubators, two significant angel networks in Cairo and Alexandria, several local and regional VC funds (with over $70 million in committed capital in the last couple of years), regular startup events throughout the country and an annual regional and international startup summit bringing together emerging businesses, investors, support services and most importantly eager young talent looking for exceptional opportunities. to read more, please click here
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Going in like a lion... March has us thinking about: feminism, Romans, and the Irish.
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We don’t have to tell you that we don’t think that startups are exclusive to Silicon Valley or the West. Ditto on women’s entrepreneurship. We’re reading Arab Women’s Rising, which you can download for free here. We love it because it blows all the stereotypes about women in the Middle East out of the water, showing that women from Morocco to UAE, Turkey to Tunisia are talented, determined, and diverse. #GetIt |
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March 15, known as the Ides of March, wasn’t a good date for Julius Caesar. During a meeting of the Roman senate, his supposed allies Brutus and Cassius mounted an assassination on the Roman leader. Damn, is right. Things drastically changed after that. |
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And what would go well with Roman pizza? Guinness! We don our finest greens and raise a glass to St. Patrick of Ireland on March 17. And jamming to these Irish(ish) ditties: |
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15 March 2017Launchpad Start Week is holding a mentoring day with Ali Karabey as one of the mentors. 16 March 2017British Council in collaboration with Technology Development Foundation launches Tech4Culture conference to inspire innovation in Zorlu. We will be there. 5-7 April 2017Step2017 is the tech conference to be in MENA and 212 will be there. See you there!
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“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.” ― Henry Glagler Rockfeller |
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