# 500 Istanbul

> 500 Istanbul is a VC fund in Istanbul backing Software and Information Technology. See 25 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Istanbul, Turkey
- Total investments: 25
- Last investment: May 2022
- Lead investor: 24%
- Fund size: $35M
- Last fund: Mar 2021
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/500startupstr
- Website: https://500istanbul.co/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/500istanbulvc/

500 Istanbul is a VC fund in Istanbul focused on Software and Information Technology. 500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. Since its inception in 2010, 500 has provided hundreds of millions of investment dollars, acceleration programs, and support services to thousands ofentrepreneurs in over 60 countries.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $250k–$1.2M |
| Pre-Seed | $720k–$2.6M |
| Series A | $2.7M–$15M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 6 | 24% |
| Information Technology | 4 | 16% |
| Machine Learning | 3 | 12% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 3 | 12% |
| SaaS | 2 | 8% |

55 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 11 | 44% |
| Pre-Seed | 7 | 28% |
| Series A | 2 | 8% |
| Convertible Note | 2 | 8% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 4% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 9 | 36% |
| Turkey | 8 | 32% |
| Estonia | 1 | 4% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 4% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Refine | Refine is a react-based web application development platform that offers a wide range of software services. | $1M | Seed | Jun 10, 2022 |  |
| Freeflow | The blockchain developer marketplace for web3 projects. |  | Seed | May 18, 2022 |  |
| Permify | Permify is a relationship-based authorization solution that provides a variety of binding and crafting options to build fine-grained access control. They design and model your authorization logic through an extendable domain-specific language. |  | Pre-Seed | Apr 27, 2022 |  |
| Altogic | Altogic is an app development and execution platform that helps developers create, deploy, and manage scalable APIs for JAMstack apps. Their users can also benefit from their application development services. Clients can easily authenticate users, perform database operations/aggregations, and trigger their internal cloud functions usingAltogic's client library. | $1M | Seed | Apr 12, 2022 |  |
| Layer AI | Layer AI offers a generative AI platform to assist game developers in creating 2D, 3D, and video assets. The platform enables artists to train custom AI models using their own artwork, generate game assets, and refine them using an integrated canvas tool. Layer AI supports various workflows, including live service content, game characters,backgrounds, UI elements, in-game items, and marketing campaigns. The platform is model-agnostic, allowing integration with industry-standard tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, Maya, Unreal Engine, Unity, and Godot. Layer AI is built to be enterprise-ready, offering features like SOC 2 Type II compliance, single sign-on (SSO), role-based access controls, and full audit trails. The company provides different pricing plans, including a free tier for individual users and paid plans for teams and enterprises. |  | Seed | Apr 08, 2022 |  |
| synnada.ai | We are building low-touch, self-contained ML systems to facilitate robust, high accuracy alerts that drive mission-critical actions in streaming data environments. Are you suffering from alert fatigue in your data-driven workflows? Just reach out to us, our technology may be what you are looking for. | $2.6M | Pre-Seed | Dec 28, 2021 |  |
| Synnada | At Synnada, we are not just part of the AI revolution; we are leading it. Founded by trailblazers Dr. Mehmet Ozan Kabak and Sami Can Tandogdu, Synnada is disrupting the AI landscape with our groundbreaking AI-native, unified data processing, and high-efficiency compute layer.Our cutting-edge frameworks for model development and training enableorganizations to seamlessly embed AI into their DNA, unlocking unprecedented levels of innovation and efficiency across diverse industries.As a powerhouse in the open-source community, Synnada stands out as a top contributor to Apache DataFusion and Mithril. Our pioneering solutions are a testament to our relentless pursuit of excellence and our unwavering commitment to propelling the data science community forward.Join us and be a part of this transformative journey. With Synnada’s unparalleled expertise and innovative approach, we are not just imagining the future of AI—we are building it. Dare to innovate, and revolutionize your operations with Synnada’s visionary technology today. | $2.6M | Pre-Seed | Dec 28, 2021 |  |
| Datapad | Datapad engages in the development of data tool for teams. | $1M | Pre-Seed | Nov 25, 2021 |  |
| Agave Games | Agave Games is a mobile games publishing company and provides unique experiences |  | Pre-Seed | Sep 20, 2021 |  |
| Ango AI | Ango AI is the quality-first data labeling platform for medical AI. Our mission is to accelerate knowledge transfer from experts to AI. We were established in 2021. Our offices are located in San Francisco and Ankara. | $720K | Pre-Seed | Aug 04, 2021 |  |

10 of 25 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [500 Emerging Europe](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/500-emerging-europe) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [500 Global](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/500-startups) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [212](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/212-capital-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [ACT Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/act-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [FoodLabs](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/atlantic-food-lab) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Collective Spark](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/collective-spark) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does 500 Istanbul invest in?

500 Istanbul invests primarily in Software, Information Technology and Machine Learning startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 25 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is 500 Istanbul's check size?

500 Istanbul typically joins rounds of $250k–$1.2M at Seed, $720k–$2.6M at Pre-Seed and $2.7M–$15M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds 500 Istanbul participates in.

### When did 500 Istanbul last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for 500 Istanbul closed in May 2022. Shizune tracks 25 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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