What is TÜBİTAK BiGG?
TÜBİTAK BiGG (Bireysel Genç Girişim Programı: Individual Young Entrepreneurship Programme, programme code 1512) is Türkiye’s flagship pre-seed grant programme for technology entrepreneurs. Administered by TÜBİTAK (Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu), BiGG provides non-dilutive grant funding to early-stage founders with technology-based business ideas, distributed across two stages and several application periods per year.
Programme stages
- Stage 1 (BiGG-Uygulayıcı Kuruluş): idea screening through TÜBİTAK-approved implementing organisations (universities, accelerators, TGB technoparks). Selected founders receive training and mentorship.
- Stage 2 (1512): selected founders incorporate a company and receive grant funding for an R&D project: current ceilings have moved upward in recent calls (verify current call documentation for exact figures).
Eligibility
- Individual entrepreneur: at the time of application, must not own >50% of an active company in the same sector.
- Education: typically university graduate or final-year student.
- Technology-based idea: hard tech, deep tech, software with R&D content.
- Age cap: historically applied but varied by call: check current call.
Adjacent grants and follow-on
- KOSGEB Ar-Ge İnovasyon Destek Programı: follow-on R&D grants.
- TÜBİTAK 1507 SME Ar-Ge Başlangıç Destekleri: early SME R&D grants.
- TGB Technoparks: tax exemptions for R&D companies in approved technoparks (Article 4054 advantages).
Do: apply through a TÜBİTAK-approved Uygulayıcı Kuruluş for higher conversion rates; align project with strategic R&D priorities published by TÜBİTAK.
Don’t: propose pure commercialisation work without R&D content: BiGG specifically funds research-based projects.
BiGG money, clean cap tables
TÜBİTAK BiGG’s grant is equity-free, but it is not condition-free, and diligence reads the conditions: the funded project’s scope and the company actually built (pivots beyond the supported project raise clawback questions), spending documentation against eligible costs, and IP position: work funded under the program should be owned by the company, with university or mentor-institution entanglements documented and cleared. Two cap-table notes recur: BiGG-stage companies often carry implementer-organisation relationships (accelerators administering the program) whose advisory equity or fee arrangements must be papered; and grant-period employment formalities (founders on payroll, SGK status) are the small-print items investors’ counsel checks first. Treated as a mini-audit rehearsal, BiGG discipline pays again at the seed round.
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