Growth & Investment Program

Innovate21st is an acceleration program that successfully embodies the components of learning, mentorship, and financing.

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About the Program

Developed by idacapital, invested in by various institutional investors, Innovate 21st Acceleration & Investment program offers a wide range of knowledge base and Venture Capital support in order to promote startups. Startups that meet our target areas and growth criteria can join the programme throughout the year.

In order to maximise the returns of our participants, we run the return on investment with a model where founders earn more. As Innovate21st, we aim to invest in startups with strong and reliable teams that can produce digital and innovative solutions to conventional business verticals, enabling them to reach their growth targets more easily and constructively.

Our Unique Selling Propositions

Program Content

Financing up to $250,000 through Convertible Bonds

1:1 meetings with investment analysts and you will get financial model design, unit economics analyses, growth and access to finance support in line with financial metrics

6 month program focused on driving business growth and accelerated market penetration

Close communication with Venture Capital investors and experts in marketing, technology, legal & tax issues etc.

Content

Marketing and Cloud Server perks

Opportunity to receive further financing from program backers

Opportunity to reach a wide network of Venture Capital investors & co-investors

Eligibility Criteria

If you think your product or service

has achieved

product-market fit

If you're operating in FinTech, E-Commerce, Value Chain, Environment, Climate, and Social Responsibility verticals, and effectively utilizing advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence

If you believe that you can increase the value of your company at least 10 times in three years

Previous Programs

Impact Investing

For more detailed information:
https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals

The developer and the moderator of the Innovate21st Investment and Acceleration program, idacapital, is the one and only social impact fund in Türkiye. Along with financial returns, idacapital also seeks for measurable positive environmental and social impact in its investments.

Businesses that can be considered within the scope of impact investing are more likely to scale in different geographical areas that share the same problems, and by appealing to the majority impact investments have the potential of faster growth and wider expansion.

To categorize and measure social impact, Innovate21st uses United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals as its guide. In general, Innovate21st emphasizes goals 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 12 within its investment strategy, however, there might be changes within the scope of each cohort.

Road Map

Program Topics

Market

Traction & Scale

Team and Execution

Customer Experience

Sustainable Differentiation

Problem and Vision

Unit Economics &

Business Model

Sustainable Systems & Risk Management

Product & Lovable Solution

Go-to Market Strategy

Investment Strategy

Previous Programs

Digital Inclusion-Cohort 3

After the completion of two successful acceleration programs focusing on ''Retail & Proptech'' and ''Fintech & Financial Inclusion'', we are expanding our vision to emphasize on contemporary needs of businesses and individuals.

After certain stage of evaluations:

QDelivery, which offers platform that enables platform consolidation and optimization in courier operations.
Diginak, a digital road transport fintech company, keeps all stakeholders of logistics in the ecosystem.
Organo-ID, which offers innovative and technological methods for detection of accurate diagnosis for cancer treatments.

For more info...

For detailed information...

Program Topics

RetailTech & PropTech-Cohort 1

The ongoing change caused by digitization on Retail, Shopping and Commercial Real Estate Spaces, is stepping into a new phase, as we call it the “New Normal”, a lot sooner than it is expected.

The New Normal, still yet to take on its mature form will affect consumer behavior (health, security, entertainment, etc.) Legacy systems should rapidly adapt to these changes, paving the way to create new opportunities for startups that have developed innovative solutions addressing these needs.

Innovate21st focuses on this context. With this Call, we boldly aim to place Istanbul in the origin point of such changes and new solutions. We want to be the first investors and users of these solutions.

Following the evaluations during the second phase of the program:

Pulpo AR, working on augmented reality in the cosmetics sector
Park Palet and Navlungo, serving as a marketplace in the logistics and storage sector

Deserved to attend the acceleration program coordinated by idacapital, and a total of 450K USD pre-Series-A level investment were made into these startups.

Retail & PropTech - Cohort 1

For more info...

FinTech - 2. Dönem

Retail & PropTech - Cohort 1

For detailed information...

After the first Innovate21st acceleration program focusing on the Retail & Proptech verticals launched back in October, we determined the second program’s main theme as Fintech & Financial Inclusion. In the 3-month evaluation period, we have assessed over 100 applications and completed our meetings with every startup that applied to join the program.

After certain stages of evaluation:

Fintegre, which provides affordability and sales growth solutions for retailers that increase the purchasing power of their customers and create additional revenue through its platform which is tailored according to retailers’ needs.
Agriofinans, which is an agriculture-focused financial technology startup that redesigns agricultural production and value-chain financing
WorqCompany, a new-generation one-stop-shop for SMEs and startups, providing high-quality vendors and partners for key business services such as company establishment, accounting management, digital finance, and office space solutions.