The third term of the HUBrica Acceleration Program, carried out by Halkbank and İTÜ ARI Teknokent, was completed with Demo Day, where 10 startups made presentations. The event, which participated in the business development agenda of technology startups, took place at Halkbank Towers in Istanbul Financial Center. The bank announced that it signed contracts with five graduate startups from different periods in line with its needs. This information does not mean that all 10 startups on the stage received investment.
Halkbank General Manager Recep Süleyman Özdil stated that the program has produced 30 graduates so far. The participants of the new period were Cherry Mic, Clamint, Innolife, Inopolyme, Kitchenest, Odigos, Parkera, Saspera, Tylus AI and Vericore. His work areas range from agriculture, food, digital health, artificial intelligence, parking and enterprise software. The bank did not share the names of the five contracting enterprises in a separate list in this statement.
Among participants, Clamint analyzes brands’ visibility in AI searches. Tylus AI focuses on generating reports in natural language from databases, while Inopolyme focuses on showing the freshness of food with color-changing packaging. Parkera combines parking viewing, reservation and payment functions in a mobile application. These are the solutions defined by the startups, not the independent performance test results announced at the event.
HUBrica offers training and pilot study opportunities together
The working model of the program does not only consist of making presentations to investors. Halkbank also includes conducting proof-of-concept studies, sales meetings and possible collaborations with startups. Bank representatives provide mentoring on market entry, commercialization and regulation in financial technologies. Startups thus have the opportunity to compare their products directly with the needs of an institution.
In addition, the program provides short promotional documents and development tracking for each initiative. ITU Çekirdek’s mentor network, opportunities to work with corporate stakeholders and investor meetings are also included in the process. Advantages related to cloud, payment and accounting tools aim to support the operations side of the business. The existence of these opportunities does not create the same amount of cash investment commitment for each participant.
Support from ITU Çekirdek also includes access to a mentor pool of more than 500 professionals. Startups also have the opportunity to meet with more than 90 investor stakeholders. These describe the size of the network that the program describes. It is not stated that each startup met with all investors in this number one by one or received offers from all of them.
The start announcement in July announced the schedule, which carried the third term from training, mentoring and interviews in September to the investor meeting in October. Demo Day is the final phase of this calendar. Successful participants also have the opportunity to present to a wider audience of investors in the Big Bang Startup Challenge.
Another line offered by the program is access to the İTÜ Çekirdek Acceleration process. The official program page states that HUBrica participants receive an advantage in admission to this stage. Pilot work and sales meetings with corporate stakeholders are also included in this framework. However, completing the acceleration program does not mean receiving automatic investment or sales guarantee.