Yasemin SALIH
Created Date: November 24, 2024 04:00
Finance company Neo Portföy and healthcare investor Volitan established Turkey’s first venture capital investment fund in healthcare, InnoHealth. Ufuk Eren, one of the founders of the fund, said, “The area where artificial intelligence is advancing the fastest is health. There is a great opportunity before Turkey. We created a fund of 25 million dollars. Our goal is to become Turkey’s ‘unicorn’ in health technologies. “There is this power,” he said.
Research shows that every dollar invested in health creates $2 to $4 of value to the economy. This impressive multiplier lies behind the fact that health has taken a large share from recent technology initiatives. When we look at the size of investment funds in Turkey recently, it is seen that it has reached a volume of 8.6 billion dollars (as of July 2024). The total size of venture capital investment funds (GSYF) was 5.6 billion dollars as of July 2024.
While thematicization attracted attention in world venture capital investment funds, Türkiye also followed this trend. There are specialized funds in many fields. The first venture capital investment fund in healthcare was established in recent weeks. The focus of the fund called InnoHealth, which has a size of 25 million dollars, is on initiatives in the field of innovative health technologies.
TWO COMPANIES CAME TOGETHER
InnoHealth’s venture partners include Esas Holding CEO Çağatay Özü Doğru, Bozlu Holding’s boss Şükrü Bozluolcay, Stanford University Prof. Famous names such as Utkan Demirci are included. But when we look at its story, we see that two companies specialized in their field have joined forces. fund management company Neo PortfolioTanju Günel and Emre Göltepe, partners of , and Ufuk Eren, CEO of Volitan Global, which invests and consults in startups in the field of healthcare, are the names behind the new company. Stating that they quickly implemented InnoHealth, the partners said that they received approval from the CMB in the first quarter.
Emphasizing that health technologies are currently the largest market place in the world, Eren said, “We will especially invest in startups that have passed the seed stage, called Series A, and have now produced a product that can be sold. “Because startups in this group find it more difficult to find investors,” he said.
THERE IS A UNICORN ON THE TARGET
Eren summarized Innohealth’s goal as follows: “Our plan is to grow the initiatives after a certain point. There are over 100 health initiatives in Turkey. As Volitan, we are in contact with more than 40 research centers abroad. We will expand the ventures we invest in abroad. I am calling out to all health investors here. Come and join this fund, together we will contribute to Turkey’s health unicornLet’s take out the ‘s. In 2021, Türkiye obliged all companies to transfer 3 percent of their R&D support to their GDP. “This creates an important opportunity.”
IT WILL START WITH 10-12 INVESTMENTS
According to the information provided by Ufuk Eren InnoHealthwill make investments ranging in size from 500 thousand to 2 million dollars. In the first phase, it is planned to invest in 10-12 startups. Eren said, “The regulation says that 85 percent of investments should be made in domestic enterprises. We will invest in some companies in the second stage. Our goal is to quadruple the money invested over the life of the fund. Eight startups are currently on our radar. We aim to have the first closure by the end of March. “We plan to reach 25 million dollars by the end of 2025,” he said.
Source: bigpara.hurriyet.com.tr
