Bundle
BUNDLE is a mobile news-reading app that simplifies reaching news from mobile. Founded by Enes Danis, Ercan Varol and Serkan Ceylan in 2014, the platform, which offers different categories for users to personalize their news-reading routine, raised a total of USD 500,000 in seed funding in 2014 from Dwarf Planet. Dubbed Turkey’s Flipboard, Bundle reached 45,000 active users in Germany, the company’s first target market. The company partnered with 12 leading German media companies, including Deutsche Welle, T3N Magazine, Vice Medya and Konradin Medya. Bundle reached one million active users in Turkey in 2019.
Onedio
ONEDIO is a new media platform that provides everything from video, photographs, tests and breaking news for its visitors to share. Founded by Kaan Kayabali and Turku Eginlioglu in 2012, the social media platform has over 90 million monthly visitors. In 2013, the company attracted a TRY 1.2m seed investment from Revo Capital and a USD 3m Series B investment from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ERBD). Recently, the platform launched the beta version of Dio, a new social media platform where users create their content. Also in July, Onedio and infrastructure startup Teknasyon partnered up for the luck game platform Oyna Kazan. The companies jointly made a USD 1m investment for the platform, renamed TriviaStars.
Papiroom
Z M I R – B A S E D Papiroom is a next-generation social media platform where users can create their own newspaper. Founded by Umutcan Karaok, Omur Kan and Mert Karaok, the company allows users to write, edit and publish news. Papiroom reached 3,500 users in five months after it was established. The company uses seven technology products and services including HTML5, Google Analytics and Google Fonts, according to G2 Stack and four technologies for its website, according to BuiltWith. These include Google Font API, Google Tag Manager and Global Site Tag. The platform has users from abroad as well, including Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and the UK. Papiroom allows users to launch their own newspapers and lets them partner with companies for advertisement opportunities. 75% of the ad revenues go to the owner, while the platform receives the remaining 25%.
Connected2.me
THE San Francisco-based Connected2me is a free-to-use mobile application that enables users to anonymously chat with others. Founded by Ozan Yerli in 2011, the global messaging platform has over 25 million registered users. The platform offers an anonymity feature that is not available in other messaging platforms which allows communication without revealing your identity. Connected2.me has raised a total of USD 615,000 in funding over two rounds, their latest in 2014. The platform’s monthly visits increased by 27.1% in March compared to February. Turkey constitutes 80% of the site’s traffic with Germany and the U.S. following at 6% and 5%, respectively.
Scorp
FOUNDED by Izzet Zakuto and Sercan Isik in 2015, Scorp is a video platform for brands. The platform motivates users to join the conversation on brands’ topics with positive association or hype about the brand. Scorp offers a wide range of videos that is not just only about comedy or music but also about news, politics, sports, movies, TV shows, celebrities, books & art, food, fashion & beauty and relationships that are created as 15-second videos. The platform, which raised USD 1.9m in seed investments from five investors including BIC Angels, enables users to discover a different point of view in different content.
Interesting Engineering
BASED IN the U.S., Interesting Engineering is a community for engineering, technology and science lovers. Founded by Huseyin Kilic in 2018, the platform offers content for readers to keep up with the latest technological advances, ground-breaking scientific discoveries and the most Interesting Engineering projects in the world. Interesting Engineering has over 10 million followers on Facebook and is a growing platform in the U.S., with 45 of the platform’s total 5.2 million monthly visits in February belonging to American users. The U.S. is followed by India and the UK with 8% site traffic each.
