New ‘Turcorns’ on the way: Minister

Turkey aims to become a major player in advanced technologies and aims to have new "Turcorn" companies, Technology Minister Mustafa Varank has said.

Privately held startup companies valued at over $1 billion are named "unicorn," and "Turcorn" refers to such companies based in Turkey.

"Recently, 'Getir' has become a $7.5 billion company with an investment and is currently the second most valuable company in Turkey," Varank said yesterday at the opening of the Efficiency and Technology Fair in Ankara.

"While 100-year-old companies could not achieve this success, a 5-year-old company, which set out with only one idea, did it," he added.

"In order to achieve such success, we need to turn to new-generation technologies that will lead to groundbreaking transformations in technologies that are already widely in use," he stated.

Varank said that Turkey "aims to become a trend-setting country" in technologies such as digitalization, space, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

On June 8, the head of Turkey's Digital Transformation Office said that the government would encourage data storage and processing facilities to be founded by domestic and global companies with incentives that will be announced soon.

"Turkey has seen unicorns. Now, we aim to have decacorns; firms valued more than $10 billion," Ali Taha Koç said during an online conference organized by the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD).

"We are inviting Amazon, Google, Microsoft and all others to Turkey. We are open to collaboration for their investments in our country," he said.

Turkish application-based fast delivery startup Getir's valuation passed $7.5 billion after an investment round...