In episode 89 of Çıtayı Yükseltenler, we tackled a topic that’s increasingly central to the venture capital conversation: how do growth-stage Turkish companies make it to the global league? Our Managing Partner Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu and co-host Hüseyin Oğuz, founder of Opus Partners, this time hosted Oleka Capital Managing Director Emir Bölen.
With Emir Bölen — who moved from the numerical discipline of investment banking to the visionary world of technology ventures — we explored the fundamental differences between traditional finance and the dynamics of early-stage tech investing. The thesis at the heart of the conversation was clear: growth is not coincidence, it’s a design problem. Through this lens we examined in depth how Oleka Capital takes an active role as a “growth architect” in companies’ journeys, far beyond simply deploying capital.
A different lens: from investment banking to the VC world
Emir Bölen is a rare profile who carries the discipline and valuation methodologies of traditional finance while having internalized the founder-led, vision-driven decision-making of venture capital. In the episode, he shared how the synthesis between these two worlds is built, how deal structures and risk perspectives diverge, and what signals an investor should read “beyond the numbers.”
The growth-stage capital gap in Turkey and the scale-up need
In Turkey’s startup ecosystem, the number of pre-seed and seed investors has grown rapidly in recent years; however, local capital for Series B and beyond is still scarce. Emir Bölen described Oleka Capital’s mission to close this gap, its concentrated portfolio approach of focusing on a small number of companies and working shoulder-to-shoulder with them, and the value of an investor’s operational support at the growth stage.
Strategic mistakes founders make when going global
Perhaps the most cautionary part of the episode covered the emotional mistakes founders make in their international strategies: the critical difference between going to “the country you’d like to live in” versus “the market where the opportunity is,” how Silicon Valley funds can — in aggressive scenarios — remove founders from the CEO seat, and why a global expansion roadmap must be designed from day one.
Investor-founder fit and long-term partnership
The final part of the conversation focused on how to find the right investor-founder fit, the right timing for the first meeting, the value of building face-to-face trust beyond digital meetings, and how a data-driven global growth plan is constructed. Through Emir Bölen’s transparent storytelling, we listened to the foundations on which a long-term partnership — well beyond capital — is built.
What you’ll hear in this episode
- From Investment Banking to the VC World: Carrying the discipline of traditional finance into the startup ecosystem
- Growth Architecture: Turkey’s scale-up gap and a focused portfolio strategy
- Data-Driven Globalization: The cost of emotional decisions and designing a global roadmap
- Investor–Founder Fit: The importance of finding the right frequency and building face-to-face relationships
- Long-Term Partnership: A strategic support model that goes beyond capital
Listen to the episode
You can listen to episode 89 of Çıtayı Yükseltenler on Spotify or YouTube.
