Gaming

A new games-focused VC in Turkey shows the industry there continues to gain steam

Comment

Laton Ventures team
Image Credits: Laton Ventures team

Turkey has gained a well-earned reputation as being a veritable cauldron of mobile games startups, leading to the rise of VCs dedicated to the sector. The latest to join this coterie is Laton Ventures, a new gaming-focused VC that has raised a $35 million fund. Founding partner — and solo GP — Görkem Türk says he’s aiming to build a bridge between the Turkish gaming ecosystem and the rest of the world, investing in the pre-seed and seed stages. The fund is legally domiciled in the Netherlands.

As an emerging market with a young population, Turks have eaten up mobile games as fast as they can be produced, giving rise to over 740 gaming startups. More than 48% of the 86 million people in Turkey are under the age of 30 and over 92% of internet users play games in Turkey compared to the world average of 82%.

Indeed, between 2018 and 2022, Turkish gaming startups raised more than $1 billion in funding.

Admittedly, Laton has some competition. There are now at least 25 VC funds that invest in video game startups based out of Turkey. That said, most invest in other tech sectors as well.

Türk, who is a former gaming and startups industry manager at Google, explained to me in a call that Laton plans to stand apart by emphasizing operational advisory to its portfolio companies.

“We’re positioning as a bridge between the Turkish gaming ecosystem, which is booming, and the international gaming ecosystem. Secondly, we will double down on operational support in areas like user acquisition, game design, cohort analysis, development, and so on. We’re backed by over 20 exited founders. That really sets us apart,” he said.

The fund has already invested in five companies in the past six months: Two in Turkey, two in Europe and one in the U.S., and plans to leverage its veteran industry adviser network.

To that end, Laton’s LPs include Mehmet Ecevit, co-founder of Gram Games; Mert Gür, founder of Loop Games; Mert Can Kurum, founder of Ruby Games; Fırat İleri, managing partner of Hummingbird Ventures; Nevzat Aydın, founder of Yemeksepeti; and Eric Kress, founder of Gossamer.

More TechCrunch

Uber is now letting riders in India to book up to three rides simultaneously.

Uber now lets users in India book three trips at once

U.S. airports are rolling out facial recognition to scan travelers’ faces before boarding their flights. Americans, at least, can opt out. 

Yes, Americans can opt out of airport facial recognition. Here’s how

The promise of AI and large language models (LLMs) is the ability to understand increasingly wider amounts of context and make sense of that information easily, so it makes sense…

Bee AI raises $7M for its wearable AI assistant that learns from your conversations

Featured Article

DEI backlash: Stay up-to-date on the latest legal and corporate challenges

It’s clear that this year will be a turning point for DEI.

DEI backlash: Stay up-to-date on the latest legal and corporate challenges

Bike-taxi startup Rapido, which counts Swiggy among its investors, is the latest Indian firm to become a unicorn.

India’s Rapido becomes a unicorn with fresh $120M funding

Government websites aren’t known for cutting-edge tech. GovWell co-founder and CTO Ben Cohen discovered this while trying to help his dad, a contractor, apply for building permits. Cohen worked as…

GovWell is bringing automation and efficiency to local governments

Critics have long argued that wararantless device searches at the U.S. border are unconstitutional and violate the Fourth Amendment.

US border agents must get warrant before cell phone searches, federal court rules

Featured Article

UK’s Zapp EV plans to expand globally with an early start in India

Zapp is launching its urban electric two-wheeler in India in 2025 as it plans to expand globally.

UK’s Zapp EV plans to expand globally with an early start in India

The first time I saw Google’s latest commercial, I wondered, “Is it just me, or is this kind of bad?” By the fourth or fifth time I saw it, I’d…

Dear Google, who wants an AI-written fan letter?

Featured Article

MatPat, the first big YouTuber to successfully exit his company, is lobbying for creators on Capitol Hill

Though MatPat retired from YouTube, he’s still pretty busy. In fact, he’s been spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill.

MatPat, the first big YouTuber to successfully exit his company, is lobbying for creators on Capitol Hill

Featured Article

A tale of two foldables

Samsung is still foldables’ 500-pound gorilla, but the company successes have made the category significantly less lonely in recent years.

A tale of two foldables

The California Department of Motor Vehicles this week granted Nuro approval to test its third-generation R3 autonomous delivery vehicle in four Bay Area cities, giving the AV startup a positive…

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro is gearing up for a comeback

With Ghostery turning 15 years old this month, TechCrunch caught up with CEO Jean-Paul Schmetz to discuss the company’s strategy and the state of ad tracking.

Ghostery’s CEO says regulation won’t save us from ad trackers

Two years ago, workers at an Apple Store in Towson, Maryland were the first to establish a formally recognized union at an Apple retail store in the United States. Now…

Apple reaches its first contract agreement with a US retail union

OpenAI is testing SearchGPT, a new AI search experience to compete directly with Google. The feature aims to elevate search queries with “timely answers” from across the internet and allows…

OpenAI comes for Google with SearchGPT

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX announced on Saturday a controversial plan to “socialize” the $230 million loss from its recent security breach among all its customers, a move that has sent…

WazirX to ‘socialize’ $230 million security breach loss among customers

Featured Article

Stay up-to-date on the amount of venture dollars going to underrepresented founders

Stay up-to-date on the latest funding news for Black and women founders.

Stay up-to-date on the amount of venture dollars going to underrepresented founders

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Commerce Department agency that develops and tests tech for the U.S. government, companies and the broader public, has re-released a…

NIST releases a tool for testing AI model risk

Featured Article

Max Space reinvents expandable habitats with a 17th-century twist, launching in 2026

Max Space’s expandable habitats promise to be larger, stronger, and more versatile than anything like them ever launched, not to mention cheaper and lighter by far than a solid, machined structure.

Max Space reinvents expandable habitats with a 17th-century twist, launching in 2026

Payments giant Stripe has acquired a four-year-old competitor, Lemon Squeezy, the latter company announced Friday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As a merchant of record, Lemon Squeezy calculates…

Stripe acquires payment processing startup Lemon Squeezy

iCloud Private Relay has not been working for some Apple users across major markets, including the U.S., Europe, India and Japan.

Apple reports iCloud Private Relay global outages for some users

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. To get Startups Weekly in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. This…

Legal tech, VC brawls and saying no to big offers

Apple joins 15 other tech companies — including Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI — that committed to the White House’s rules for developing generative AI.

Apple signs the White House’s commitment to AI safety

The language is ambiguous, so it’s not clear whether X is helping itself to all user data for training Grok or whether this processing refers only to user interactions with…

Privacy watchdog says it’s ‘surprised’ by Elon Musk opting user data into Grok AI training

Sound Search on TikTok is somewhat similar to YouTube Music’s song detection tool that lets you find the name of a song by singing, humming or playing it. 

TikTok rolls out a new feature that lets you find songs by singing or humming them

Skip, a wearable tech startup that began as a secretive project inside Alphabet, exited stealth this week to announce a partnership with outdoor clothing specialist Arc’teryx. The deal is the…

Alphabet X spinoff partners with Arc’teryx to bring ‘everyday’ exoskeleton to market

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has launched a new mid-range device, the Ledger Flex. Available now, priced at $249, the dinky hardware wallet…

Ledger launches Ledger Flex, a mid-range hardware crypto wallet

The good news is that you can switch off the new data-sharing setting and also delete your conversation history with the AI. 

Here’s how to disable X (Twitter) from using your data to train its Grok AI

Regulators gave SpaceX the all-clear to return to launch two weeks after the Falcon 9 rocket experienced an anomaly on orbit.

SpaceX cleared to resume Falcon 9 launches while FAA investigation remains open

Madison Long and Simone May founded Clutch in 2020 to help connect people to businesses looking for marketing and content creation.

Digital marketing startup Plaiced has acquired Precursor Ventures-backed Clutch