Türkiye's strongest and most widespread capital platform on a global scale, MÜSİAD and LETVEN CAPITAL have entered into a strategic cooperation within the scope of the TARS Venture Capital Investment Fund.
The online press conference organized to announce the scope and details of the cooperation was held today with the participation of MÜSİAD President Abdurrahman Kaan and LETVEN CAPITAL General Manager Kamil Kılıç.
We Believe Momentum Will Turn Positive as of the Last Quarter of the Year
Speaking at the programme, President Abdurrahman Kaan made a brief assessment of the quarantine period brought by the pandemic and of its aftermath. Pointing out that Türkiye grew by 4.5 percent in the first quarter of the year, Kaan stated that this figure would decrease in the second quarter, partly because of the quarantine period. Kaan said, “We estimate that the supports provided to the markets will become even more evident in the coming period, also thanks to the normalization process that began on 1 June, and that momentum in the Turkish economy will turn positive as of the last quarter of the year.”
The Agriculture and Food Sectors Have Strategic Importance in Our 2023 Targets
Noting in his speech that the agriculture and food sectors are of great importance for the Turkish economy, Kaan said that the agriculture and food sector has strategic importance if our country is to reach the USD 150 billion of production and USD 40 billion of exports it has set within the scope of its 2023 targets. Kaan said, “With 2.2 million producers and more than 45,000 small or large-scale companies, Türkiye has been a net exporter in the agriculture and food sector for the last 20 years and ranks 21st in the world with an average annual export growth rate of %7.5. Today, large companies with a %2 share produce %45 of all agricultural and food products. In the İstanbul Chamber of Industry's (İSO) list of Türkiye's Top 500 Industrial Enterprises, food ranks first with 100 companies, and the net sales of these companies amount to TRY 143.5 billion. The sector provides 5 million jobs and %12 of exports are realized through agricultural products.”
The Target Is to Raise Exports to USD 180 Billion in the Next 10 Years
President Kaan stated that they supported LETVEN CAPITAL in order to serve as a lifeline for Türkiye in raising its exports from USD 18 billion to USD 180 billion over the next 10 years and in transforming 2,000 agriculture and food companies into SMEs and large-scale companies.
Also giving information about the projects MÜSİAD has prepared on technology and innovation, Kaan said, “We regard this cooperation as one of the fruits yielded by the ‘Renewal’ process that our MÜSİAD has put into practice. With our wide-ranging projects of this kind, in which our MÜSİAD brands will take an active part as the final stage of our renewal process, we aim to present high value-added work to the national economy. Our brand, which we define as MÜSİAD FUTURE (Gelecek), will make its presence felt as an effective player in Türkiye's new road map in the field of agricultural and rural development, with the slogan “the business models of the future and the sectors of the future”. On this occasion I would also like to announce that in the very near future we will present to you yet another project of our MÜSİAD FUTURE brand.”
Kaan concluded his remarks by calling on all stakeholders, primarily MÜSİAD members, to invest in the TARS fund.
LETVEN CAPITAL General Manager Kamil Kılıç, for his part, emphasized that venture capital investment funds investing in the fields of agriculture, food and technology have invested USD 100 billion in nearly 5,500 ventures over the last 7 years.
“The World Aims to Develop New Business Models in the Near Future by Collecting Data with Billions of Sensors”
Kılıç said, “The world is focused on enriching data in order to offer the consumer the most accurate product in the optimum way, on preventing the loss and waste of products, on managing online supply-demand systems with smart warehouses, and on delivering goods directly from the producer to the market or the consumer with driverless vehicles and drone transport. This situation will make it compulsory for the agriculture and food value chain to be integrated into the global production and consumption ecosystem. In an environment where food demand is rising, agricultural land is shrinking and the impact of climate change is felt more with each passing day, for sustainable food and food security the world aims to develop new business models by collecting and processing data with sensors whose number will exceed billions in the near future.”
We Aim to Produce 1 Unicorn in This Field
Kılıç used the following expressions regarding the targets set within the scope of the TARS Venture Capital Investment Fund:
With the TARS Venture Capital Investment Fund we aim to commercialize at least 10 patents or innovations, to bring each of 5 start-ups to a valuation level of at least TRY 50 million, to contact %10 of the enterprises in the agriculture and food ecosystem and invest in 15 companies, to ensure that at least %50 of the turnover of %40 of the companies in the portfolio consists of export revenue, and to produce 1 unicorn from Türkiye in this field.
With the LETVEN CAPITAL TARS Fund we also aim to invest TRY 200 million within 2 years in the fields we group as production technologies, namely Agricultural Biotechnology, Farm Management Software, Robot and Automation Technology, Bioenergy, Biomaterials, Supply Chain Technologies, Agricultural Industry Marketplaces, Innovative and Functional Food products, and in those we group as service technologies, namely In-Store Retail and Restaurant Technologies, Restaurant Marketplaces, e-Market, Home and Cooking Technology, Online Restaurants and Meal Kits, and Financial Technologies in Agriculture.”
Pointing out that it is very important to join forces with MÜSİAD, Türkiye's most widespread and strongest capital platform on a global scale, Kılıç stated that they believe this cooperation will lead to many positive developments for the Turkish economy in the coming periods.