Webrazzi

Mikro Ödeme receives investment from Mediterra Capital

No Comment by Ali Altuğ KOCA on January 25, 2012 Tweet

One of the major Turkish mobile payment services, Mikro Ödeme, has received investment from Mediterra Capital. Information on the amount has not been shared with us yet, but it was announced that Mediterra Capital has acquired majority shares of Mikro Ödeme.

The management of the company will be the same after the acquisition, while Alper Akcan will continue to do his duty as shareholder and GM.

It was also added that Mikro Ödeme is the leader in Turkish mobile payment market with a share of 65 percent, and it is now aiming to show a speedy growth with the support of the investment it got from Mediterra Capital.

Webrazzi Almanac 2011

No Comment by Ali Altuğ KOCA on January 18, 2012 Tweet

2011 has been a year with major advances for Turkish internet industry. Apart from foreign investors’ great interest in Turkish market, Gittigidiyor acquisition by eBay and Markafoni acquisition by Naspers as majority shareholder have been significant milestones for the industry.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers investment of 26 million dollars in Trendyol and Amazon investment in ÇiçekSepeti towards the end of the year, which was its first investment in Turkey, were major developments for our e-trading market.

Other good developments were the huge interest in Webrazzi Summit by local and international participants in October and many major internet companies including Facebook, Twitter and Zynga took their places in the event, which was sponsored by 24 companies.

A start-up story: UzmanTV caught profitability in 4.5 years

No Comment by Fırat Demirel on January 17, 2012 Tweet

I believe that early start-up owners should write a book about their story, even a blog, in Turkey. Successful start-up owners should transfer their knowledge and experience on blogs, just as thesis and studies transfer know-how in academic career.

This story was inspired by Ersan Özer, who started to write his blog again.

Ersan Özer’s article on sitesahibi.com tells about UzmanTV’s journey and how it made today. The 5-year start-up gives decent messages to new entrepreneurs.

My aim for writing about this story is both to extend this article to more people, and to encourage early start-up owners to write their blogs, and we invite them to write for Webrazzi as guest authors. I guess I have to shortly mention about Uzman TV’s story now.

You can Have Rental Domain Names with Nokta Domains New Service

No Comment by Arda Kutsal on January 12, 2012 Tweet

You already know that many great domain name sales news bear NoktaDomains.com sign. This company is also among the portfolios tracked globally for domain names.

You might remember our former reports on CookingGames.com which was sold for $350,000 and UcakBileti.com which was sold for $250,000. The report I wish to share with you now is not about retail, but it has an important place in Turkey’s domain names market because of the brand new model it brought in.

NoktaDomains.com has started providing a service for the names in its portfolio, allowing everyone wishing to rent the listed domain names.

Webrazzi 2011 results are in!

No Comment by Ali Altuğ KOCA on January 11, 2012 Tweet

Webrazzi 2011 process started with your nominees on the first days of December, and it was finalized last Friday.

Webrazzi 2011 ended with a large participation as last year, while a more than 200 thousand votes were used in total. Below is the full list of Webrazzi 2011 results with the bests of 2011 selected by your votes:

The Results are in for Qualcomm Mobile Business Idea and Application Competition

No Comment by Fırat Demirel on January 10, 2012 Tweet

Qualcomm’s contest looking for mobile start-up owners “Mobile Business Idea and Application Contest” is over and the results are in. A total of 16 mobile business ideas made it to the finals to be selected by the jury on December 21. The competition gives a total cash prize of 50,000 TL and the awards were presented with an event.

The winner of the contest in which mobile fun, mobile health, location based services and other mobile applications and ideas were reviewed is Yener Duran with his mobile bussiness idea named Treasures and Traps. Treasures and Traps is a location based social network game supported with augmented reality and has brought Yener Duran a 30,000 TRY (15,000 USD) prize.

The entrepreneur who won a prize worth 20.000 TL with his application called Adım Sayar (Pedometer) was Onur Özkol. This application counts each step people take throughout the day, and enables them to share this data on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, while encouraging users to develop a healthier lifestyle.

Fizy’s targets for 2012 – Digiturk channel and premium membership are on the way!

No Comment by Arda Kutsal on January 5, 2012 Tweet

We have learned that there are some exciting announcements on the way for Fizy, the popular music service started by Ercan Yarıs and whose majority shares were acquired by Turkcell.

First let me say that Fizy has benefited from the synergy between Turkcell’s group companies and will have a channel on Digiturk.

Fizy’s Digiturk channel might be one of the first surprises of year 2012, and I believe that it will be very effective and useful. We have also learned that Fizy might work with D-Smart for a similar channel besides Digiturk.

Hazinem Pırlanta: Major Investors Invest in Diamond

No Comment by Arda Kutsal on December 27, 2011 Tweet

Emre Kurttepeli mentioned about his interest in vertical e-trading in this year’s Webrazzi Agenda E-commerce Meeting, and he confirmed this interest once again. A fresh startup, Hazinem Pırlanta A.Ş., is the new vertical e-trading investment with its experienced management team and major investors, including Emre Kurttepeli.

The startup will be offering diamond ring, necklace, bracelet, and earrings sale on the internet and offering its services at Hazinem.com.

Hazinem.com gets online today, so you can have a look at it now, or read about the details of the company below.

Foursquare Gives Special Badge to Istanbul

No Comment by Sami Eyidilli on December 27, 2011 Tweet

Last week we wrote that Foursquare has reached 15 million users, and the number of its members continues to rise rapidly. Foursquare puts its users in a race with its badges, and receives very nice feedbacks with its special badges and encourages Foursquare usage.

Foursquare used to work with its partners, and create special badges for them to encourage its use. Some of them that first come to my mind are American Red Cross badge that are exclusively given to people who check-in to blood donation centers in the US and donate blood, and NASA Explorer badge which an astronaut first received upon making check-in to the space; of course you don’t need to check-in to the space to receive it, you can have it on visiting some museums and space centers of NASA.

Foursquare began to work on some special items for cities. City badges can be received by checking in specific places of a city. First Windy City badge was for Chicago. Then La Ville-Lumière badge for Paris; London Calling badge for London and Bosphorus Badge for Istanbul!

Germany Based Ballroom International Network Acquires Reklamz, Linkz and SEM A.Ş.

No Comment by Arda Kutsal on December 23, 2011 Tweet

Reklamz, one of the leading Turkish advertising networks, has been acquired by Germany-based Ballroom International Network. The acquisition a contract included its sister companies Linkz and SEM A.Ş.

Ballroom International included Reklamz, Vidyoda, SEM and Linkz to its network after acquiring all sister companies, which offer advertising and digital services, and updated its website as necessary. You can see Ballroom International’s networks and partners here.

While we do not have confirmed info about the amount of this acquisition, we do have some hearsay information and we are trying to have those confirmed.