On the last day of Take Off İstanbul, the event continued full throttle with great competition of finalist startups, keynotes and panels. As you know, 50 semi-finalist startups pitched to the jury on Day 3. Today, 15 finalists selected by the votes of the jury made their final presentations.

Welcoming Speech by Selçuk Bayraktar

The last day of Take Off İstanbul started with the speech of the chairman of the board of trustees / CTO Baykar Selçuk Bayraktar. His speech was focused around work done in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Also, the impact and importance of such events.

A Special Guest - Keynote by Young Sohn

Take Off İstanbul Day #4 went on with the speech of the Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Young Sohn. He talked about Samsung’s innovation culture and what Samsung does for entrepreneurship. Also, he ended his speech with a Turkish quote “Merhaba, Burada olmaktan mutluyum” which means “Hello, I am happy to be here”.

Venture Capital Panel

After the speech of Young Sohn, Venture Capital Panel started with moderator Kaan Akın. Great panelist from different geographies joined to the event, the CEO of Angivest Ventures Narayanan Ganapathy, Marketing Director of IIDF Accelerator Tamara Loseva and Founder of Endure Capital Tarek Fahim.The main focus of the session was local startup successes and how to identify the best talent in the region. The verdict was unanimous; founders! Session leads into the lunch break.

Great Panel - Turkish Exits

In the afternoon, very successful Turkish Entrepreneurs, Barbaros Özbugutu, CEO of Iyzico, Andaç Türkmen, CTO of Paraşüt, Koray Gültekin, CEO of Foriba, were on the stage with GP of 500 Startups Rina Onur Şirinoğlu. The session was about their successful journies with entrepreneurship and their potential future ventures. All of the founders are going to stay with the companies acquired, but if they have a chance it will be entrepreneurship for them as soon as possible.

Finalists Pitching Session | 15 Startups

The most exciting moment of the day was undoubtedly the presentations of finalist startups. 15 finalist startup pitched to the jury. After the presentations, With the jury’s decision, the winner is revealed. PakVitae came first among the 15 finalist startups and received $1000.00 Google Cloud Credit. PakVitae provides lifetime affordable filters that can purify water to 99.9999% without any power requirement. Also, the top 6 startups receiving $20.000 Google Cloud Credit are Augmental, T-Fashion, Inspector Cloud, iltema, Uservision.You can see all the semi-finalist and finalist startups in the table below.

This is the end of the Take Off İstanbul. Take Off İstanbul left behind with very special memories. Huge thanks to our participants and everyone who contributed to our journey.