EBRD invests in the rapidly growing Turkish tech company, obilet.com
12.12.2019 14:02:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invested in obilet.com, the online sales platform for users to purchase bus and airline tickets. EBRD, which offers financing for thousands of projects to support local growth in European countries, has invested $11 billion in Turkish businesses and projects to date. Earlybird Venture Capital, an investor in obilet.com, announced that it will also participate in the next round of funding.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191212005302/en/
EBRD added obilet.com, Turkey's fastest-growing online ticket sales platform, to its investment portfolio. Yigit Gurocak, (obilet.com CEO and Co-founder) and Ali Yılmaz, (obilet.com Co-founder) (Photo: Business Wire)
Yigit Gurocak, CEO - obilet.com, said that the company aimed to provide services to different segments of the transportation industry by expanding its teams in 2020 with the support of new investments.
The company, currently at 400 million visitors, aims to sell 18 million tickets in 2020!
obilet.com, which offers comparison and purchasing options for bus and airline tickets of more than 150 bus operators and 1000 airlines, was founded in 2012 by two university students and entrepreneurs, Ali Yilmaz and Yigit Gurocak. The company’s CEO Yigit Gurocak summarized the last seven years, “Starting from its inception to the present day, obilet.com recorded outstanding growth to reach 400 million visitors, now ranks the top-visited travel site in Turkey.”
The initiative of two entrepreneurs’ dreams, obilet.com currently operates with 160 employees and is expected to maintain its growth in the Turkish travel industry, which reportedly has a size of approximately $15 billion. Yigit Gurocak said that the company aims to sell 18 million tickets in 2020 on obilet.com and the mobile app in Turkey, where 300 million tickets are sold in total.
The Turkish startup to receive highest international funding
According to Startups Watch data, obilet.com stood out as the Turkish startup to receive the highest amount of international funding in 2018 Q2 and when the investment was acquired in November 2019, it was the largest amount of investment of 2019 up until that point. With the participation of EBRD in the latest round, obilet.com has received its fourth investment round in the last five years leading the Turkish technology and travel sectors in this aspect. With this investment, obilet.com raised $10 million within one year.
Named “Europe's Best Travel App” by Mastercard in 2015, obilet.com ranked eighth among the fastest-growing companies listed in the 2017 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 program with a growth rate of 1041%. Most recently, obilet.com was also listed among Turkey’s 100 Fastest Growing Businesses according to the results of a 2019 survey conducted by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV).
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191212005302/en/
Contact information
Contact Details:
Sena Ozkurt
sena@obilet.com
+905348960414
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Horizon3 Earns Cyber Essentials Certification Covering NodeZero EU Network28.9.2026 11:00:00 EEST | Press release
Horizon3, the AI-Native Proactive Security Company, today announced that it has earned Cyber Essentials Plus certification covering its NodeZero AWS EU network. The network supports Horizon3’s EU data sovereignty site in Germany. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260928143792/en/ Horizon3 Earns Cyber Essentials Certification Covering NodeZero EU Network Organizations use NodeZero® to test production environments and find weaknesses attackers can exploit. When customers and partners assess the platform itself, they also need to understand the security standards applied to its supporting infrastructure. The Cyber Essentials certificate identifies a defined portion of that infrastructure and the baseline against which it was assessed. Developed by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, Cyber Essentials addresses five foundational controls: firewalls, secure configuration, security updates, user access control, an
Thales Expands Collaboration with Google Cloud to Help Secure Agentic AI Workflows28.9.2026 10:03:00 EEST | Press release
Thales today announced an expanded collaboration with Google Cloud to help enterprises address emerging security and governance challenges associated with agentic AI, bringing integrated protection, visibility, and policy enforcement to AI-driven workflows on Google Cloud. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260928647188/en/ ©Thales The integration of Thales AI Security Fabric with Google Cloud Gemini Enterprise helps organizations apply security, governance, and visibility across interactions among users, agents, models, and tools in real time. “Enterprises are moving from AI assistants to AI agents that can autonomously take action, make decisions, and interact with critical business systems. This requires a fundamentally different approach to security,” Eva Rudin, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity Products, at Thales, said.“By expanding our collaboration with Google Cloud, we are helping organizations build
SPORVIGILANCE Targets Safer Medicines and Billion-Euro Savings for Global Pharma Facing EU IDMP Fines28.9.2026 09:13:00 EEST | Press release
British regulatory technology company SPORVIGILANCE is targeting one of global pharma’s major compliance challenges with a platform offering a faster route to IDMP and SPOR readiness, compliance and governance. As the European Medicines Agency advances structured medicinal product data, companies face pressure to keep regulatory data accurate, standardised and aligned with EMA requirements. SPORVIGILANCE replaces fragmented manual assessment with a regulatory intelligence layer built around IDMP, SPOR and Product Management Service (PMS) requirements. At its core is an IDMP Business Rule Validation Engine that assesses medicinal product data at scale and at field level, identifying missing, inconsistent and non-compliant data. SPORVIGILANCE is the only platform to translate IDMP business rules directly into automated validation logic, enabling companies to test data against the rules rather than rely on manual interpretation. Its PMS Alignment capability reconciles internal RIM data ag
Sofinnova Partners Closes Oversubscribed €82 Million Sofinnova MD Start IV Fund to Create the Next Generation of Medtech Companies28.9.2026 09:00:00 EEST | Press release
Sofinnova Partners ("Sofinnova"), a leading European life sciences venture capital firm based in Paris, London, and Milan, today announced the final close of Sofinnova MD Start IV at €82 million. The fund, which was oversubscribed, will help expand Sofinnova's medtech company-creation strategy across Europe and the US with greater capacity to launch new ventures and support them through key stages of development. With plans to launch six to eight new medtech companies over the next five years, Sofinnova MD Start IV will support ventures from inception through key clinical and operational milestones, providing founders with both capital and hands-on support. Sofinnova MD Start's approach combines clinical insight, entrepreneurial talent, and operational expertise to tackle significant unmet medical needs. The previous fund, Sofinnova MD Start III, a €63 million fund, invested across six companies that have collectively raised more than €140 million in follow-on financing. Sofinnova MD S
Ant International’s Antom Upgrades Southeast Asia Leadership Structure to Drive Regional Synergy in the AI Era28.9.2026 08:18:00 EEST | Press release
Antom, a leading merchant payment and digitisation services provider under Ant International, today announced a series of key appointments for its operations in Southeast Asia to further strengthen the synergy among its regional brands and better serve regional merchants with streamlined full-stack AI-native solutions. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260927431282/en/ Nabilah Alsagoff, co-founder and former chief operating officer of DOKU, Indonesia's leading payment fintech company, has been appointed as Head of Product, Antom SEA. In her new role, the payment veteran will oversee product development and innovation and drive a unified product roadmap for the overall SEA region. Chris Yeo, former chief executive officer (CEO) of DOKU, will take on the role as Head of Antom Philippines, and Country Head of 2C2P Philippines. With his long experience at DOKU, Grab and PayPal, Chris will also oversee the execution
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom