212 (venture capital)

212 is a venture capital firm specializing in early venture, mid venture, and late venture investments. The firm focuses on investments in internet, communication, and technology companies with a focus on software, social gaming, eCommerce, mobile, social media, and the cloud. It seeks to invest in Turkey, the CEE region, and the Middle East countries. 212 was founded in 2011 and is based in Luxembourg, Istanbul and Doha .

212 was founded on Dec 2, 2011, by Ali Karabey and Numan Numan with the vision of investing in Turkey and its region. The headquarters are located in Luxembourg with two additional offices in Istanbul , Turkey and Doha, Qatar. Numan was previously a banker at Goldman Sachs, New York and Karabey worked for Morgan Stanley, New York.

212 invests in B2B technology startups. The firm invests between $0.5 million and $3 million in its portfolio companies. It prefers to take a minority stake in its companies. 212 has made 16 investments. On Jan 19, 2017, they invested $12M in iyzico. 212 has raised a total of $64.4M across 2 funds. The 212 Regional Fund II was announced on Oct 18, 2018, and raised a total of €30M.

The firm is focused on “companies that are ready to sell internationally and are already selling”. 212 has launched four companies as of 2019. One of the companies is Lyzico, a payment processing business in Turkey and another is Insider, an e-commerce enables platform in focused in southeast Asia. As of 2019 the firm’s portfolio companies were generating half their revenues outside the Turkish market.