Top 50 Marketplace Angel Investors in Middle East

Nevzat Aydın is the CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, the first and biggest online food delivery portal in Turkey.Born in 1976 in İstanbul, Nevzat Aydın completed his secondary education at the Bursa Anatolian High School. Following his graduation from Boğaziçi University Department of Computer Engineering, he went to the United States where he receivedhis MBA at the University of San Francisco in Silicon Valley.During his stay in the United States, Aydın followed the latest developments on e-trade before he returned to Turkey in 2000 to launch his project, Yemeksepeti.com. Serving as the CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, Nevzat Aydın introduced a brand new dimension to e-trade in Turkey.In 2007, Yemeksepeti.com was selected the “Endeavor Entreprenur” by Endeavor Turkey. Aydin was also selected the “Most Successful Turkish Young Entrepreneur” by the CNBC-e Business magazine in 2010 for his successful work since the foundation of Yemeksepeti.com.As the founder and CEO of Yemeksepeti.com, which celebrated its 11th anniversary in 2012, he won the first prize in 2011 in the “Male Entrepreneur of the Year” category at the “Businesspeople of the Year” survey conducted by the Ekonomist magazine among nearly 3,000 business people.Aydin is a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Supreme Board of the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, and a founding member of Galata Business Angels.Aydın was one of the 150 entrepreneurs invited from all over the world to the Entrepreneurship Summit held by US President Barack Obama on April 26-27, 2010.He was also among the speakers at the DLD (Digital-Life-Design) Conference, which is deemed as one of the world's most prestigious conferences with its content on innovation and developments in the digital world. He is also an editorial advisor of GQ Turkey, one of the 5 “dragons” of the Dragons’ Den Turkey show, and a Board Member of Trabzonspor sports club.

Bedii Can Yucaoglu - Advisor @ Hesapkurdu

Omer Erkmen is the co-founder at Yeni Nesil Kafası. Omer Erkmen attended UC Santa Barbara.

Ahu Serter is the Founder and President of Fark Labs. She previously worked at FARHYM Vehicle Interiors as a Head of Management Committee, Board Member. Ahu Serter attended Pace University.

Emre Acikel

Umur Özal is an angel investor.

business in the water industry. By 2005, the company succeeded in the Turkish bottled water industry under his guidance.In 2006, Erikli Water partnered its Turkish operations with Nestle Waters, the global leader of the bottled water industry.

Joachim Behrendt is the Head of the Advisory Board at Vali Berlin.

I am a business professional since 2008 and a financial investor since 2015, having strategic positions in several scale-up tech companies/startups and real-estate assets. I continue to invest in the tech domain with a focus on SaaS solutions for B2B and B2C markets, and real estate options in developing markets with ROI targets.Grow inEMEA, the company I started in 2015, focuses on East Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East markets mostly for tech and real estate options and portfolio management. Also, my team provides market access services to Baltics, Turkey, and UAE / Saudi and gives investment advisory services.Prior to the investment focus, I worked in Linkedin EMEA Headquarter where I hold Director of Turkish Speaking Territory in Dublin, Ireland. Before, I have been with SAP AG and IBM in Turkey. I also give speeches at local and global investment events. I gave keynotes on ARAB NET in Lebanon, IT Arena in Ukraine, Rise Up Summit in Egypt, and NEXT in Germany. I also spoke at several closed corporate events of Roche, VESTEL, SAP AG, DenizBank, Turkish Economy Ministry, Turkish Exporters Assembly, Bakioğlu Holding, and AGT.Now, I am living in Tallinn, Estonia.Email: alib@growinemea.com Web: https://alibabaoglan.com Photos: https://gie.investments/my-photos

Figen Korun

Uri Levine - Co-Founder & Chairman @ Refundit

Utku is a Partner based in our Istanbul office. He is the leader of the “Digital and Analytics” Practice in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, helping clients create value with data, innovative tools and techniques. He serves a wide range of industries, including financial services, telecoms, manufacturing and retail.

Melih is one of the pioneer Internet entrepreneurs in Turkey. Born in Istanbul, he studied Computer Engineering and MBA at Bogazici University. After one year of professional experience in Citibank, Melih founded yemeksepeti.com with his partners in 2000. Yemeksepeti.com became the online food delivery giant first in Turkey, and then in Middle Eastand Eastern Europe. As a co-founder, Melih has acted as CTO of the company until 2013 and as Board Member until May 2015, when the company was acquired by Delivery Hero writing one of the biggest Internet exit stories in the region. Melih has been selected an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2007. Since 2011 he has been an active angel investor in internet and technology companies with more than 30 investments. He is one of the cofounders of Galata Business Angels, which is one of the first business angel networks in Turkey. He is a founding member of EO Turkey. Melih lives in London now with his family and continues to invest in tech start-ups globally.

Firat Isbecer is an entrepreneur and a seed investor. His first venture Pozitron, a mobile software company focusing on digital banking, commerce and mobile payments, became one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in Europe with clients across the globe. After multi years of growth and a successful international expansion, Pozitronwas acquired by London-based fin-tech star Monitise plc in 2014.After the acquisition, he joined Monitise and oversaw the company’s regional operations as the MEA Managing Director. Monitise MEA quickly became one of the most profitable business units of Monitise Group. In 2017, Monitise Group was fully acquired by the US-based, Fiserv Inc, one of the world's largest fin-tech companies with more than 50,000 employees.Shortly after the acquisition, he left Fiserv and founded his newest venture, Commencis. Commencis helps leading brands grow and scale in digital, powered by it’s Big Data, Analytics and Cloud products.In September 2019, Commencis expanded to Berlin, Germany by announcing finbyte, a joint-venture in fintech solutions. Besides Commencis, he is also an active seed investor. Member of Galata Business Angels, Turkey’s first angel investor group.After graduating from Robert College in Istanbul, Firat received his Bachelor’s Degree from Galatasaray University, and his Master’s Degree from a joint programme by Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Münteha Adalı is an angel investor.

Mine Şenuysal Özgür is an Angel Investor

Faik Ulutaş is a General Manager at Mensa Sinai Ticaret Ve Mali Yatirimlar AS (MEMSA).

Mr. Zohar Gilon is a Managing Partner at Tamar Technology Ventures. He has personally invested in over 45 start-ups and has achieved 13 exits. Mr. Gilon has also served as the Transaction Manager for some of Israel's most highly recognized exits and has managed each deal from inception through completion, including pricing and distributions.He has extensive investment experience including activity as an angel investor and an Investment Advisor to the Gilon Group. Mr. Gilon is a private investor in numerous high-technology companies, including affiliates of Radcom Ltd. in Israel. From 1974 to 1993, Mr. Gilon served as the President of various companies representing major U.S. aerospace and electronics corporations. From November 1993 to August 1995, he served as the President of W.S.P. Capital Holdings Ltd. Previously he served, as the Managing Director of Shaked Technologies Ltd. He serves as a Director of HCL CleanTech Ltd., RIT, AVT Ltd., Oberon Media, Inc., Edge Medical, Exlibris, OrSense Ltd., and WisAir Ltd. He served as a Director of RAD Ventures. Mr. Gilon served as a Director of RiT Technologies Ltd. since 1995, Ceragon Networks Ltd. since June 1999, Radware Ltd. from October 2006 to July 2009 and Radcom Ltd. since June 1995. He served as Member of the Supervisory Board of Advanced Vision Technology (AVT) Limited. He served as an Outside Director of Silicom Ltd. since 1994.

Tolunay Yıldız

Belkıs Kuşçulu Özer is an Angel investor.

Hakan Bas - Founder & CEO @ Ace Games

Varol Civil - General Manager @ Türk Ekonomi Bankası

Ron Zuckerman is the Co-Founder and Director of TV Time.

Sina is a Serial Entrepreneur. His latest endeavor is Tiko which he founded and serves as CEO. Before that he was the Founder of Markafoni, the first Online Fashion site of Turkey. Markafoni became also the first Turkish internet company expanding beyond the borders of Turkey: Markafoni launched sites in Australia, Ukraine, Greece and Polandbetween 2009 and 2011. Sina served until 2014 as Chairman and CEO. The Naspers Group acquired in July 2011 a majority stake at Markafoni and signed for one of the biggest deals in the Turkish internet. Sina is also an active Business Angel and invests in early stage start-ups. He is the President of the Entrepreneur Foundation and Endeavor Turkey Board (2013-2017).Sina has been elected as the “Internet Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Business Angel of the Year” in Turkey. Markafoni won several awards: “Best Web Start-up 2011” and “Best Online Fashion Site in 2011, 2012 and 2013”. The Wired UK magazin elected in 2012 and 2013 Markafoni to the hottest 100 companies in Europe. Sina was also selected (2014 & 2015) to the Top 100 most influential tech people Europe. In 2016 he was selected as one of Top 100 most influential tech people in the World (Wired Magazine). Forbes Magazin elected him to the "Brightest Minds" alive in Turkey (2019).Prior to Markafoni, Sina spent more than 5 years with eBay and 12 years with KPMG. Sina received a "Diplom Kaufmann" from Münster University and joined later Harvard Business School. He speaks five languages. His passion goes with his family and esports where he is the President of "1907 Fenerbahçe esports” team - a professional esports team in the TCL. He shares his thoughts on eCommerce in his personal blog www.sinaafra.com and on twitter (sinaafra).

I am a business professional since 2008 and a financial investor since 2015, having strategic positions in several scale-up tech companies/startups and real-estate assets. I continue to invest in the tech domain with a focus on SaaS solutions for B2B and B2C markets, and real estate options in developing markets with ROI targets.Grow inEMEA, the company I started in 2015, focuses on East Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East markets mostly for tech and real estate options and portfolio management. Also, my team provides market access services to Baltics, Turkey, and UAE / Saudi and gives investment advisory services.Prior to the investment focus, I worked in Linkedin EMEA Headquarter where I hold Director of Turkish Speaking Territory in Dublin, Ireland. Before, I have been with SAP AG and IBM in Turkey. I also give speeches at local and global investment events. I gave keynotes on ARAB NET in Lebanon, IT Arena in Ukraine, Rise Up Summit in Egypt, and NEXT in Germany. I also spoke at several closed corporate events of Roche, VESTEL, SAP AG, DenizBank, Turkish Economy Ministry, Turkish Exporters Assembly, Bakioğlu Holding, and AGT.Now, I am living in Tallinn, Estonia.Email: alib@growinemea.com Web: https://alibabaoglan.com Photos: https://gie.investments/my-photos

Noam Lanir, founder at Livermore.

Alp Saul - Cofounder and Chairman of the Board @ Pronet

Hüseyin Nalbantoğlu

Nuri Şahin

Ömer Aras

Safa Rashtchy is the founding Managing Partner of Think + Ventures and a a Silicon Valley investor, advisor, and trendspotter. Safa and sits on the boards of several start-ups and global organizations. Safa has been an Investor/Advisor in AppliedBoard, Angellist, Bina Technologies (acq. by Roche) , Uber, OpenGov, Payjoy, Nimble VR (acq. byFacebook), Signifyd, CleverSense (acq. by Google) and many other investments. Overall, Safa has invested in 30 start-ups, with six exists all to public companies. Safa has pioneered the concept of "Consumer Value Proposition" and the Four-Stage Investment Research Model.From 1997 to 2007, Safa was a Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst focused on Internet media and marketing, and the Lead China analyst at Piper Jaffray and Company. He led the firm’s expansion efforts in the Internet industry and its expansion to China, as well as active involvements with leading Web 2.0 companies. Safa’s current investment portfolio consists of companies focused on Digital Health, consumer, media, and technology innovations, with deep attention to the the value proposition for the users.

Mr. Lemelbaum is an experienced Film Producer. Since 2007 Mr Lemelbaum is also involved in Investment Research and Managment, and serves on the Board of Directors of Israeli listed public companies AMS Electronics and BSR Europe. Mr. Lemelbaum holds a BA in Computer Science from IDC, and MBA from Columbia University

Yılmaz Yıldız

Serhan Kohen is an Angel investor.

Burak Divanlıoglu is the founder at GittiGidiyor, a Turkish e-shopping mall offering auctions, stores, and fixed price listings.

Metin Bencuya is an Angel investor.

Deniz Alexandra Duygu

Ömer Duran

Ramazan Evren

Ata Uzunhasan - Managing Director @ Galata Business Angels

Carman Chan is one of the top 5 Women to watch in Asia Tech (Nikkei Asian Review). She is a veteran in the technology industry with decades of experience as an entrepreneur with multiple exits, a tech columnist and a globally recognized venture capitalist.Carman is the founder of Click Ventures, a global early stage venture capital firm. ClickVentures has grown into a leading investment manager, and two of its funds are featured as Top 5 Seed Fund (Vintage 2003-2015) in the world and Top 4 Funds to Watch by Preqin respectively. Click Ventures' investments include Spotify (ipo), Docusign(ipo), Palantir, Memebox and Youappi.

Tushar Ahluwalia is the Co-Founder and CEO at Razor Group.

Founder and Investor and part time Iron Man. Passionate about that moment when a startup knows how to get it's story told

Serkan Borançılı is the founding partner of GittiGidiyor, Turkey's leading consumer-to-consumer marketplace, which was acquired by eBay in 2011 for $220 million dollars. Born in 1971 in Ankara, Borançılı graduated from Istanbul Technical University with a degree in Architecture. After working as a freelance architect, he founded ARKInformation Technologies with Burak Divanlıoğlu in 1999. Up to 2004 GittiGidiyor was administered by ARK. Borançılı is also the co-founder of UzmanTV, a video website specializing in curated content by experts, and Istanbul.net, Turkey's largest online dating platform. Borançılı is also the first investor in BiTaksi, Turkey's leading taxi-hailing app. Since, he has also invested in Modacruz, a marketplace for secondhand luxury fashion.

Timur Soysal is an angel investor.

Jonathan Doerr is the CEO of Daraz. Prior to this, Jonathan served as the managing director of Jumia Nigeria.

Magnus Olsson is the Founder and Managing Director at Careem.

Hosam Arab

Doğukan Doru Alkan is an Angel Investor.

Yuval Tal has made quite a difference in the world of business online thanks to the creation of various e-commerce companies, many of which have successfully developed through his co-creation or his additional expertise. He has over 20 years of experience in technological startups, prepaid card applications, and security technology. CurrentWork Experience: Yuval Tal is the president of the NYC-based Payoneer, the private company he founded in 2005 an served as CEO during 2005-2010. Payoneer establishes viable solutions for payments in prepaid MasterCard® credit cards through the Internet via their prepaid Payoneer credit card. Instead of using typical banking services, Payoneer allows its members (including many online businesses) to sell products, but pay for their own supplies through an online service. Their technology system is secure, but assures privacy for its customers. The company is composed of over100 technology and finance expert employees. While based in NY, it also has research and development locations in Israel.Tal also provides consultation to Payments-r-us, a company started by four e-commerce experts who provide payment processing, merchandising and assorted payment solutions to their customers. The company helps their members find appropriate and free payments solutions.Past Work Experience: Before the creation of Payoneer, Tal was a co-founder for E4X Inc., technology and e-commerce payments provider worldwide. The company was established in 1999 but later changed its name to FiftyOne as it became a global market and e-commerce leader. The company allows its businesses to develop their online sales, marketing, delivery, stock, and transaction capabilities. Its current value is upwards of $500 million. Tal was the acting vice president as part of the business and development sector. FiftyOne is an innovative e-commerce solution because it's one of the pioneers of the e-commerce movement, allowing online retailers from the US to promote, market, and sell their merchandise using the monetary means of their native country. This is still significant today in terms of global money orders, payment processes and the international flow of goods from one point to the other. It's no wonder that market retailers like the Anthropologie clothing store, luxury and electronic gift store Brookstone, and Overstock.com have worked with the company. The company is based in New York, with its research and development operations unit in Israel.Tal also shined in leadership positions for companies such as R-U-Sure, where he was the chief executive officer, and vice president of business development at Radware, a publically traded company on NASDAQ.Summits and Conferences:Yuval Tal has participated in a plethora of affiliate, marketing, and digital-related conferences connected to his kind of work. At many of the conferences, he was featured as a speaker. The most recent conference was the impressive "Apps World," which was held in London in October 2012. The conference is noted to be the leading venue for those involved in the apps industry where they network and collaborate on international projects. He was a guest speaker at the conference and he explained the concept of Payoneer to the participants detailing how it fits into the newest e-wallet technologies. Through Payoneer, companies distribute branded cards that enable them to send direct payments into the recipient's account. He also shared his thoughts on the shape of the future mobile industry and responded to a series of general questions regarding the e-commerce industry.When he was invited to participate in a panel discussion at Israel's Afeka College, he had the opportunity to address many issues that were unclear to the attendees. Among others, the subjects ranged from discussions on the topic of Israel as a “hotbed” in the area of financial innovation, how web based financial start-ups differs from the more traditional start-ups on the web, as in social and media networks, and how the mobile will shape the future. He also dealt head-on with such questions as to the leaders in fintech space, the coming big trends that will take place in the financial tech space, how government and foreign regulations affect business and how to manage the pace of change without being snowed under. Since Tal works with clients at online affiliate networks as part of Payoneer, it's no surprise that the hi-tech head shared his knowledge and experience at both the 2009 and 2012 Affiliate Summit conferences. The Affiliate Summit established by Affiliate marketing experts is recognized as the most important event in affiliate marketing. The 2012 Affiliate Summit West Conference event was held last January in Las Vegas. The 2009 Affiliate Summit East Conference was held in New York. At that conference Tal spoke about his affiliate experience working with affiliate agents, heightening Payoneer's prowess in e-commerce, and establishing various payment methods through the company. Tal was a keynote speaker at two important e-commerce conferences in Israel. First, he spoke at the one-day Take Charge 2011 Digital Commerce Summit in September 2011, which offers innovative ecommerce concepts for digital companies, vendors and affiliates. He also spoke at the Track N' Pay Summit in Tel Aviv, which was hosted by Payoneer. This one-day conference is based on concepts in Internet and mobile affiliate tracking and payment services. For both conferences, Tal spoke on behalf of his veteran online, selling, affiliate marketing, and e-commerce work at Payoneer as related to the concepts of each conference. Personal Experience: Yuval Tal was born in August 1965 in Israel and still resides there in his home country in a suburb called Ramat HaSharon, located about 20 minutes from the country's central city Tel Aviv. It was in Tel Aviv where he received university education after serving in an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Forces. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University in 1992. He went on to earn his Masters at Tel Aviv University where he studied biomedical engineering, minor in business administration.Tal has many hobbies outside the business and e-commerce realm. He likes photography and took five courses in it at the New School for General Studies and the Parsons School of Design, both in New York City. He has also been active in the Tel Aviv Nike Run, a 10 kilometer marathon throughout the city and has participated in a triathlon, which included running, biking, and swimming.