Keep on working and expanding

For the last couple of weeks, the main issue that had kept the Turkish public busy was the municipal elections of June 23. That’s why some awesome developments about Turkish technology businesses did not get the attention that they deserved.

At a time when we all thought that foreign confidence in Turkish markets was very low, PayU bought İyzico for $165 million, while Foriba was acquired by Sovos, and Paraşüt was acquired by Mikro and Zirve.

I had the opportunity to talk to Foriba CEO Koray Gültekin Bahar about the past, present and the future of Foriba.

“Foriba is the leading reg-tech player in the global, transforming all business transactions from invoicing to bookkeeping to paperless with its first-in-market solution,” as Foriba describes itself on its website.

Simply they provide you with financial technology that is compatible with the rules and regulations of your country, so that you will gain speed, security, insight and, as a result, more money than you would have earned if you kept everything in excel sheets.

Sovos is also in regulatory technologies, but they are bigger, they have more services and are present in more countries than Foriba. However, Foriba has access to countries that Sovos wanted to enter but did not succeed in so far, especially in the Pacific region. Also Foriba is a profit-making company, so the main focus of the sale was not money injection. That’s why, as Bahar said, the acquisition of Foriba by Sovos was a natural fit. Bahar said that at the same time that Foriba had reached out to Sovos, Sovos was trying to get information about Foriba as the capabilities and the needs of both companies were a great match.

Neither Foriba nor its CEO Koray Gültekin Bahar are strangers to receiving investments as they have successfully signed deals with IFC, Revo Capital and Endeavor Catalyst. Therefore, the dialogue with Sovos had been very smooth over the last year, even in the darkest days of Turkish markets when the value of the lira plunged.

Sovos acquired 100 percent of the company. The founder of Foriba, Ahmet Bilgen will retire in the coming weeks. Bahar will continue to serve as the CEO. Bahar told me that they will continue to grow and, with the newfound strength, their growth will be even stronger. They will reach around 300-350 people by the end of this year and are expected to be more profitable than what was planned.

Foriba will be an excellency center for Sovos, mainly serving its European customers as the quality of human resources is very high and the cost of human resources is relatively low in Turkey compared to other European countries. Bahar also eyes the Asia Pacific region for possible growth opportunities and will be visiting Vietnam for business development very soon.

I hope that the vision of Bahar pays off and Foriba will expand to new markets where few Turkish firms endeavored.