Ford Otosan, a three way partnership between Türkiye’s largest conglomerate Koç Holding and U.S. automotive big Ford Motor Co., is gearing up for the mobility revolution by actively searching for to outshine opponents by modern breakthroughs.
Also referred to as considered one of Türkiye’s export powerhouses, the carmaker this week outlined its preparations for the mobility transformation at a summit organized by its enterprise capital arm, Driventure, which focuses on seed and early-stage startups within the auto-tech sector.
The “Future of Mobility” occasion introduced collectively numerous gamers within the mobility ecosystem.
Particularly noteworthy was the Büyütech initiative, an automotive firm that develops and manufactures passive-only notion options to make the roads safer.
The summit additionally showcased the mobility options developed by Turkish ventures that Driventure invested in, together with Delivers.AI, Optiyol, Saha Robotics and the in-house enterprise Bluepath Robotics from Ford Otosan.
Mobility and good manufacturing
Speaking on the occasion, Ford Otosan chief Güven Özyurt emphasised the growing attract of the automotive sector with ideas like good mobility and connectivity turning into integral to folks’s lives.
He famous the transformation of the automotive world into a middle of analysis and improvement (R&D) actions because of the entry of expertise corporations. Özyurt highlighted the need for corporations to adapt quickly to new business fashions and modifications within the evolving panorama of good mobility and clever manufacturing.
“At the point we have reached today, the automotive sector is at the forefront of various new ventures, big and small. We see that in this new era of mobility and smart manufacturing, companies need to make unprecedented changes at an extraordinary pace and embrace new business models and applications in order to succeed,” he famous.
“As Ford Otosan, we are both setting the game and opening up opportunities for players in this ecosystem. In the entrepreneurship ecosystem, our priority is, of course, to bring innovative projects and talents into the economy. With this perspective, we aim to create added value by supporting technological and innovative solutions.”
Broad spectrum investments
Ilknur Ilkyaz Gül, common supervisor of Driventure, outlined the mission of the corporate, which she says goals to find and nurture ventures impressed by modern concepts and applied sciences.
She defined that Driventure helps concepts developed throughout a large spectrum, starting from autonomous and related autos to good mobility, pushing boundaries to discover future applied sciences.
“Driventure, enabling the implementation of innovative projects, contributes significantly to the entrepreneurial ecosystem and our country’s economy. Our goal is to lead the transformation in the industry by championing sustainable and smart mobility, strengthening the sector, and shaping the future together,” mentioned Gül.
In the quickly rising international automotive ecosystem targeted on expertise and mobility-based ventures, Ford Otosan goals to realize a strategic aggressive benefit and purchase data and insights from the market by Driventure.
Smart cameras by Büyütech
Canalp Gündoğdu, progress and good mobility space chief at Ford Otosan, highlighted collaboration with startups and investments.
“Before utilizing Büyütech’s cameras, our managers visited the services the place they produced and performed analysis. We waited to be included in our producer checklist, and our precedence was high-quality requirements. Now, we now have began mass manufacturing. These elements can even be exported overseas, opening the best way for expertise ventures to export,” Gündoğdu mentioned.
“Our present objective is to extend the variety of ventures like Büyütech. Additionally, we’re working to extend the variety of ventures rising from inside the group. Ultimately, we all know that we’ll be extra profitable within the mobility revolution by larger collaboration.”
Büyütech’s good cameras inside autos contribute to driving security by detecting the fatigue standing of truck drivers. Additionally, the transformation of truck aspect mirrors into cameras reduces friction, resulting in decrease gas consumption for the car.
Boğaziçi Ventures invests almost $5M in 18 startups
Boğaziçi Ventures, a distinguished participant within the Turkish enterprise capital panorama, concluded the difficult yr of 2023 having invested a complete of TL 150 million ($4.95 million) in 10 modern startups that concentrate on disruptive applied sciences.
The funding portfolio, notably that includes ventures within the gaming sector, additionally noticed eight follow-up investments.
The enterprise capital fund, outfitted with numerous funds like BV Global, BV Growth, Sinerji, Joygame Pre-IPO and Liquidity Trading Pre-IPO, has finalized the groundwork for asserting new enterprise capital funds in 2024.
Leveraging its founders’ deep experience in expertise and an intensive worldwide community, Boğaziçi Ventures continued its imaginative and prescient of offering assist and worth to modern, globally oriented and disruptive technology-focused startups and traders all through 2023.
Portfolio growth
Boğaziçi Ventures’ BV Growth, an energetic early-stage funding fund, allotted a complete of TL 150 million final yr, encompassing investments in 10 new startups and extra investments in eight portfolio corporations.
The BV Growth fund, primarily composed of gaming and gaming expertise ventures, continued its investments in fintech, retail applied sciences, software program as a service (SaaS) applied sciences, digital well being, human sources and academic applied sciences.
Focusing on scalable ventures in these sectors able to speedy worldwide market progress, Boğaziçi Ventures expanded its portfolio by investing in modern tasks promising structural change and aspiring to turn out to be main gamers in the way forward for disruptive innovation.
In 2023, the BV Growth Fund elevated its complete portfolio firm rely to 31, and the fund’s worth surged by 110%. Boğaziçi Ventures plans to maintain this momentum in 2024, with ongoing investments by the BV Growth fund, aiming to surpass 50 complete portfolio corporations.
Targeting $20 million funding in 2024
Boğaziçi Ventures is gearing as much as carry a brand new dynamic to Türkiye’s funding ecosystem with its technology-focused secondary funding fund, BV Sinerji.
The fund’s major focus in 2024 shall be on secondary investments, offering an exit alternative for founders and angel traders seeking to convert a small portion of their shares into money.
Barış Özistek, managing companion and CEO of Boğaziçi Ventures, mentioned in parallel with the worldwide enterprise funding market, 2023 witnessed a contraction in each the quantity and dimension of investments in Türkiye.
“In a year where investors scrutinized projects more selectively, our Boğaziçi Ventures team diligently examined and, after lengthy evaluation processes, invested in 10 new technology companies whose potential we are convinced of. Following the year 2023, we will continue our investments and efforts in line with our mission,” mentioned Özistek.
“In 2024, we plan to speculate over $20 million by all our enterprise capital funding funds. With totally different methods and exit plans, these funding funds will proceed so as to add worth to each the ecosystem and our traders.”
Türk Telekom backs semi-automatic offside system
Türk Telekom, a stalwart backer of Turkish soccer, has performed a pivotal position within the implementation of the semi-automated offside system within the top-tier Süper Lig as of the second half of the 2023-24 season.
It marks the newest of Türk Telekom’s assist for Turkish soccer, having already spearheaded improvements like Video Assistant Referee (VAR) expertise and Smart Stadium Projects.
The firm agreed on a strategic partnership with the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) to carry the expertise that helps resolve contentious offside calls with a pace and accuracy unimaginable lower than a decade in the past.
The semi-automated offside expertise marks a major milestone within the digital transformation of Turkish soccer, bringing in cutting-edge tech that can improve the general viewing expertise for followers.
Türk Telekom utilized its sturdy fiber web infrastructure and technological prowess to put in the system not solely within the stadiums of the league’s 20 golf equipment but in addition on the TFF’s VAR heart positioned in Istanbul’s Riva.
The semi-automated offside expertise has already been employed in high-profile tournaments such because the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Champions League. Its adoption within the Trendyol Süper Lig follows its debut in Italy’s Serie A.
Ümit Önal, CEO of Türk Telekom, expressed his pleasure about contributing to the digital evolution of Turkish soccer.
“Our contribution to the set up of the VAR system in stadiums and Riva, initiated concurrently with the world in 2018, stands as some of the important examples of our position within the digital transformation of Turkish soccer. As proud expertise supporters of the Turkish Football Federation, we’re thrilled to have performed an important position in bringing the semi-automated offside system to the Trendyol Süper Lig,” Önal famous.
“This system, first utilized in the 2022 Qatar World Cup and subsequently in the UEFA Champions League and Italy’s Serie A, has now been implemented in the stadiums of Trendyol Süper Lig teams with the support of Türk Telekom’s robust fiber internet infrastructure and technological expertise.”
Önal expressed the assumption that the system would contribute to the enhancement of the technological expertise and the enjoyment of watching the sport, dubbing it an important step within the digitalization of Turkish soccer.
“We prolong our gratitude to everybody concerned, particularly the Turkish Football Federation, and decide to persevering with our assist for Turkish sports activities and athletes whereas pioneering additional developments within the digitalization of Turkish soccer,” he added.
The expertise makes use of 12 devoted monitoring cameras mounted below the roof of a stadium to trace the ball and as much as 29 information factors of every particular person participant, 50 occasions per second, calculating their actual place on the pitch. The 29 collected information factors embody all limbs and extremities related for making offside calls.
Utilizing Türk Telekom’s fiber web infrastructure, the photographs of the on-field state of affairs may be immediately shared with VAR referees within the Riva heart and on-field referees.
By combining the limb and ball-tracking information, and making use of synthetic intelligence, the brand new expertise gives an automatic offside alert to the video match officers contained in the video operation room every time the ball is obtained by an attacker in an offside place.
Before informing the on-field referee, the video match officers will validate the proposed resolution by manually checking the mechanically chosen kick level and the mechanically created offside line, which relies on the calculated positions of the gamers’ limbs.
Source: www.dailysabah.com