Stripe of Turkey Iyzico Completes $15M VC Round Of Funding

Iyzico, the Turkish startup that enables eCommerce sites and other apps to accept online payments, completed a $15 million round of fundraising Monday (April 3).

According to a report in TechCrunch, the Series C round was led by Vostok Emerging Finance and included Amadeus Capital Partners and previous investors International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s investing arm, and Istanbul-based VC 212. The report noted $12 million of the Series C round was announced earlier in 2017. Amadeus Capital Partners invested $3 million in the Turkish FinTech.

Iyzico, which is sometimes referred to as the “Stripe of Turkey,”according to the report, targets online businesses and enterprises with its payment platform, with a focus on eCommerce sites. It offers a developer-friendly platform for accepting online payments.

Since launching in 2013, Iyzico says it has powered the online payments for 10,000 merchants and has 200,000 seller accounts through online marketplaces.

“The fast-growing Turkish economy is underpinned by strong consumer spending, with a high proportion of this spend transacted with payment cards. Merchants must cater to this market need with sophisticated card acceptance systems. We are excited about Iyzico’s opportunity to address this demand with its modern, easy-to-integrate and fast-evolving payment system,” said Jason Pinto, a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, in the report.

In May of 2015, Iyzico raised $6.2 million in a Series B round, bringing up its total to $9.4 million since it launched in May 2012, TechCrunch reports. The round was led by International Finance Corporation (IFC- of the World Bank Group), assisted by Endeavor Catalyst, Istanbul-based VC 212 and Austria’s Speedinvest.

The new capital will be used to expand Iyzico’s development of a comprehensive, low-cost payment infrastructure, as well as take the payment platform global, targeting the Middle East first.

The Turkish payment platform is taking advantage of the quasi-to-no competition so far from U.S. giants that are operating close by in Europe. “Our goal is to become the Stripe of the region,” says Barbaros Ozbugutu, CEO of Iyzico. “Having become the leading payment solution for online businesses and enterprises in Turkey, Iyzico is enthusiastic to take its technology global.”