On 5 January 2023, Workup (10th Batch) by İşBank and Hackquarters presented its graduates. The Demo Day was held in İşSanat Conference Hall and anchored by Yekta Kopan. With more than 400 people joining, it was a great scene full of startup pitches at the Workup and celebrating the 10th Batch of the program.

The program started with a welcoming speech by Hakan Aran, CEO, İşBank: “We got together to graduate the startups of the 10th Batch of the Workup Startup Program, which started in 2017. In this process, Program mentors and entrepreneurs made invaluable contributions to the development of the startup ecosystem. I would like to thank our partner Hackquarters and all our stakeholders for supporting and thus adding value for our country. Workup, which we have been continuing uninterruptedly for 10 terms to create, with the contribution of our stakeholders and the interest of our entrepreneurs, the pioneering and well-established ecosystem became one of the most successful programs. Our program, which develops and grows following the philosophy of producing and being permanent, is expanding with collaborations and programs carried out by the Bank in different verticals. Workup has already become the umbrella brand of the entrepreneurship initiative in Turkey.

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If we look at the 10- term journey of Workup;

-The number of applications made to Workup to date has exceeded 15,000.

-The number of startups that have been accepted to Workup has increased to 140, including Workup Agri.

-Taking into account 10th Batch,  the number of Workup graduates is exactly 100. (Workup 95, Workup Agri 5 graduates.)

-62 out of  92 graduates from the Workup past terms continue on their way in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

-So far, about 40 Workupers have raised 15 million USD investment during or after the program. These numbers show the added value created by the program.”

After Hakan Aran, Kaan Akın, Founder & CEO, Hackquarters, talked about how it all started at Workup back in 2017. “Hackquarters is a venture itself, founded 7 years ago. Annual investment volume of the Turkish ecosystem back that days was $80M. People were not much keen to push startups forward. We are now talking about $1,5-2b of annual investments in Turkey. It is very embracing to see that. In our first year, İşbank and Hackquarters crossed each other’s paths. When we were designing Workup, our aim was to touch the next-generation entrepreneurs leading to nurture an ecosystem in general. In entrepreneurship, only 10-20% of startups survive; however, when we look at the Workup ecosystem, 70% of Workup startups are still maintaining their journeys. It does not mean that the remaining 30% are unsuccessful; they are constantly improving. The $15M total of investments will not remain flat; it will reach $100-200M as the ecosystem progresses.”

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Workup Startups Pitched During the Demo Day, 5 January 2023:

‍abonesepeti: abonesepeti is a subscription management platform that helps users start, manage, and end their subscriptions.

F-Ray: F-Ray develops machine learning software that saves time and efficiency for financial statement interpreters by performing instant algorithmic financial analysis and evaluating all public or non-public companies.

Finso: Finso digitizes consumer loans and enables end users to complete shopping in physical stores and e-commerce.

Hipokid: Hipokid is a digital marketplace that brings together families looking for children's activities and institutions and individuals who offer these activities.

İnteraktif Kredi: İnteraktif Kredi provides financial reports for artificial intelligence-based decision support to users by creating a confidence score in determining the repayment power of the parties in the debtor-credit relationship and determining the terms and limits.

Kaira: Kaira Network is a multi-chain, decentralized social network for Web 3.0 communities that allow users to interact, create content and earn token rewards while socializing without fear of censorship.

Magnus: Magnus is a platform that provides optimal asset allocation in line with investors' risk profiles, expectations, and constraints by offering an artificial intelligence-based portfolio optimization and robo-advisory platform.

Memotive: Memotive digitizes touch points and gathers them into a single platform for corporate companies that want to improve their employees' experience and increase their motivation and loyalty.

Demo Day recording is available here in Turkish.