Iyzico nominated among the 16 finalists to the European “Future Unicorn Award”
DIGITALEUROPE, Europe’s trade association representing the digitally transforming industries, has announced the 16 finalists for the “Future Unicorn Award 2019”, one of them is iyzico from Turkey.
The Future Unicorn award
Running for the second year in row, the Future Unicorn Award is the Eurovision of young tech companies. The award celebrates small and medium enterprises from across Europe that have the potential to become the future European Tech giants. It is compiled in collaboration with Europe’s national trade associations representing the digital and technology sector.
This year, 16 truly inspiring companies from across Europe were nominated. The nominees come from all sectors, including financial technologies (iyzico), education technologies (LearnUpon), eHealth (Turbine), mobility (MaaS), energy (Envelio), and many more.
The award will be handed by Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy on 21 February 2019 at the Masters of Digital Conference in Brussels.
The nominated company
The sixteen participating SMEs for this year’s Future Unicorn Award are all truly amazing and unique in their respective field. iyzico is Turkey’s entry for the award contest. iyzico has already been listed as one of WIRED’s hottest start-ups to watch in Istanbul 2 years in a row.
Iyzico is providing secure payment solutions to online companies and personal sellers of different sizes. The company offers payment solutions to over 29,000 merchants in Turkey and buyer protection service to over 10,000 online e-commerce customers. Close to 10% of Turkish e-commerce payments are processed by iyzico.
Why unicorns matter
Unicorns – billion-dollar startups – may seem like foolishness. Merely, over-valued companies that wealthy investors like to poor their money into.
But in the modern economy, digital companies get exponential advantages as they scale. Because digital offering can be reproduced almost freely, instantly, and perfectly, the larger a digital company is, the more competitive advantages it gains. Said simply, when scale and network effects dominate markets, economic value rises to the top.
In this world, unicorns are an indicator of something important: who will likely become the future tech giants.
European unicorns
The good news is that there are more European billion-dollar startups. Today Europe is home to 11.5% of the world’s unicorns, compared to only 6% in 2014.
It is time for Europe and Turkey to develop a dedicated unicorn strategy. We need to celebrate those high-scale companies and create a truly single market for them to take the full advantage of the European economy.