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Multimedia juggernaut Naspers has entered the Turkish internet market with a bang by acquiring approximately 70 percent of the shares of markafoni, a Turkish private shopping club, through its subsidiary MIH-Allegro. Our source in Turkey says the investment values markafoni at around $200 million.

Markafoni is the third biggest ecommerce company in Turkey, and has ambitions to become a global brand.

The acquisition includes markafoni’s operations in Turkey (3.5 million registered members) and Ukraine in addition to Zizigo, the largest online shoe retailer in Turkey.

Naspers’ purchase of a controlling interest evidently changes the share structure of markafoni significantly. Existing investors have exited with the exception of the company’s founders and management, which will remain in charge.

Markafoni chairman Sina Afra and board members Tolga Tatari and Ahmet Emre Sarı hold the remainder of shares not owned by MIH-Allegro as a result of the deal.

Over the past two decades, Naspers has managed to evolve from a traditional print media business operational in a single country to a publicly listed e-media company operational in multiple markets. The group’s most significant operations are located in emerging markets, including South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and India.

Naspers holds a 34% interest in Hong Kong-listed Tencent, China’s largest internet services portal, a 29% stake in Mail.ru Group, the leading internet company in Russian-speaking markets and a 95% stake in BuscaPé, a ecommerce companies that operates in Latin America (primarily in Brazil), among many other investments.


Source: Techcrunch Eu

 
Intel Capital’s investment to Nokta was confirmed a few days ago, as you all know. And this investment was the first of 50 million dollar fund that Intel Capital, major investment companies in the world, has to invest in Turkey, Middle East and Africa, and also first investment of the company in Turkey.

So, which company will get investment after that?

Actually we made some guess as to what the answer would be according to the hearsay we received a few months ago, but were careful to share it with you as it was not for certain. But as our resources have confirmed that negotiations are coming to final rounds, we wanted to share the news first with you, as usual.

If nothing goes wrong, Intel Capital’s second investment will be to Grupanya, one of the leaders of group shopping market in Turkey.

Grupanya Valued at $40 million

As we have heard, the company has been valued at the level of 40 million dollars, and with this investment, it will be included in Intel Capital’s partners as minority shareholder.

I want to especially highlight that, Intel Capital’s investment to Grupanya has yet to be confirmed and no contracts have been signed yet. However we know that negotiations have been continuing for a while, and the company has come to a certain point of agreement with Grupanya, as our important contacts have shared with us.

Foreign investors’s interest in Turkey Internet market will increase

We are not sure when the contract will be signed and it will be announced, but what we are sure of is that, foreign investors will be following Turkey very closely with the investment Intel Capital has made and will make in Turkey Internet market.

We are waiting for the confirm of the issue, however will be sharing any developments with you, if any occurs.


Source: Webrazzi
 
vipdukkan.com is one of the private shopping start-ups in Turkey, which is not very known to public yet, but is continuing with firm steps forward. It has recently finalized the investment negotiations that we have been hearing about for a while.

Investor of major companies including Skype and Baidu, ePlanet Capital has made an investment of 5 million dollars in vipdukkan.com.

We also been informed that there will be a press meeting regarding the investment and the details of the investment will be shared there.

Vipdukkan.com in fact had long been having negotiations with ePlanet Capital, but we did not share this news within the negotiation period with you as we did not have any confirmed information on the issue, or any agreement news with the company.

As of yesterday, the investment of 5M dollars became official, and a very major agreement for Turkish internet market has been signed.


Source: Webrazzi
 
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Alper Akcan, the founder of Mikro Odeme, made a presentation in our Webrazzi Agenda: Online Gaming meeting held yesterday and mentioned of mobile payment market is grabs attention in online gaming economy. Alper Akcan said that mobile payment is more and more preferred as a payment option in online games and shared some figures with us.

We wanted to share these figures with people who did not attend in the meeting, as they reveal the details of transactions Micro Payment has done so far and the extent to which mobile payment ecosystem has reached. As Alper Akcan stated, total transaction volume of mobile payment after 26-month adventure in Turkey is estimated to be 86,000,000 TL. The transaction volume of mobile payment for online gaming category is 33,406,250, which means online gaming makes up of nearly 40 percent of mobile payment ecosystem.

While the number of unique users making transactions until June 15, 2011 is 4,241,815, the total number of successful transactions is 5,048,147. The average amount of users who prefer mobile payment using Mikro Ödeme channel in June is 11.16 TL. If this average amount corresponds to the value used for online gaming, we can say it is a good amount for one transaction. Because the price of cyber products purchased in social games is not that high.

Mobile payment is an alternative payment method preferred by most of the game lovers and users need to use this option to join in the games. While the share of alternative payment methods in the total volume will change in time, it will not be easy to ignore the users who use and want to use mobile payment.

Source: Webrazzi

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