Sabancı University Entrepreneurship Center SUCool's Pre-Incubation Program, which aims to support early-stage entrepreneurs, started the 2025-1 term with 38 startup teams and over 25 entrepreneur candidates.
The new term’s entrepreneurs came together at an orientation meeting held on Sabancı University Tuzla Campus. Entrepreneurs will benefit from comprehensive training, international mentoring meetings, prototyping opportunities, and investor preparation processes for the next three months.
40 Percent Female Entrepreneur Rate
With 40% of the selected startups in this period having female co-founders, the projects focused on areas such as artificial intelligence, health technologies, environmentally friendly material production, and energy efficiency. In addition to Istanbul, entrepreneurs living in cities such as Adana, Ankara, Aydın, İzmir, and Kocaeli, as well as in important entrepreneurship centers in the USA such as Houston and New York, were also included in the hybrid program.
Following the opening speech of Sabancı University Startup Programs Leader Naci Kahraman at the program’s introduction and orientation meeting, Sabancı University Inovent A.Ş. Entrepreneurship and Business Development Manager Evren Değerlier shared his insights on the challenges and turning points an entrepreneur will face in his presentation entitled “The Journey of an Entrepreneur.” Sabancı University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Director and Inovent A.Ş. CEO Ziya Alpay emphasized that SUCool is not just a program, but also an inclusive innovation community: “With the experience we have gained in the entrepreneurship ecosystem under the Inovent umbrella since 2006 and with SUCool since 2013, we know that the startups we support at an early stage today can become global success stories of tomorrow. At SUCool, we pioneer in equipping our entrepreneurs with the competencies to compete internationally at every step.”
Steps on the Path to Globalization with International Mentoring
One of the most striking innovations of SUCool this term is the collaboration initiated with the US-based The Venture Mentoring Team (VMT). Thanks to this structure, inspired by the MIT and Harvard models, startups are matched with experienced mentors from centers such as Boston, Silicon Valley, and New York.
Participants will work on topics such as problem definition, customer development, MVP creation, and investor presentations in hybrid training sessions that will last for 8 weeks. Startups in the SUCool Pre-Incubation Program will see a professional from the entrepreneurship ecosystem as a guest speaker in each training.
Thanks to the face-to-face meetings held every Tuesday throughout the program, entrepreneurs are provided with an entrepreneur club atmosphere with activities such as professional studies, walking breaks by the lakeside at Sabancı University, meetings, and various sports events.
Preparation for Investment: TÜBİTAK BiGG and Sabancı Seed Investment
Startups that complete the program will be evaluated by Sabancı University Seed Fund and directed to the TÜBİTAK BiGG 2025-2 call, of which Sabancı University Inovent A.Ş. is the official implementing organization under the name BiGG3INN. Teams that win BiGG support will receive an investment of 900,000 TL in return for a 3% share they will give to the TÜBİTAK BiGG fund.
Some of the Featured Startups:
The startups selected for the SUCool Pre-Incubation Program can be viewed at https://sucool.sabanciuniv.edu/tr/pre-inc/2025-1. Here are a some of these startups:
● 10Fold: 10Fold is an innovative technological initiative that develops autonomous AI-powered applications that aim to increase the productivity of individuals and institutions by up to 10 times.
● 88Miles: This digital art gallery created with virtual reality technology allows users to interact with art by exceeding physical boundaries. 88VR Art Center hosts both contemporary artworks and offers artists the opportunity to exhibit their works in a three-dimensional environment. Visitors can interactively explore world-famous exhibitions and artists' works with VR glasses.
● Agripoli: A sustainability-focused material technology initiative that produces environmentally friendly bioplastic granule raw materials from agricultural waste.
● Airvision: A deep technology decision support system that detects eye, systemic, and mental diseases early with the anterior segment of the eye.
● Callistack: Callistack is a management platform that provides fast demo creation and easy payment infrastructure for agencies developing voice AI assistants.
● Chargify: An AI-powered SaaS solution that manages electric vehicles, charging stations, and solar panels in a single cloud-based platform, increasing operational efficiency, and reducing costs.
● HYVO: An energy technology startup that uses hydrogen as a clean fuel to generate off-grid and sustainable DC electrical energy.
● Journy: Journy is a self-awareness-focused, AI-powered mobile app that combines weekly journaling, synchronized daily and recurring goal tracking, and media history in an easy-to-use calendar interface.
● Loraguard: LoRaGuard is a smart communication network and emergency management platform that maintains information flow between operational units in crises such as fires and earthquakes, and uninterrupted intra-group communication in rural areas.
● Oyunmu: OyunMu is a mental health app that reduces loneliness, strengthens social ties, and improves individuals' communication skills through games.
● Qualitas: Bringing inspectors together with products, it is a platform that builds a fast, reliable, and effective bridge between expertise and need.
● Trizmatik: TRIZmatik Artificial Intelligence Solutions is a technology initiative that combines TRIZ with creative artificial intelligence to provide solutions for product development, manufacturing processes, industrial R&D and innovation, and to increase the local, national, and global competitiveness of the companies it works with.
● Tyr: An artificial intelligence-supported legal assistant specially designed for lawyers, capable of conducting comprehensive legal research, drafting legal documents and performing risk assessments.
● Vynls: A platform that turns music sharing into an emotional and meaningful gesture. It allows users to match each song with their personal memories and present it with a unique digital unboxing experience
