Farplas

Continuing to invest in tomorrow’s smart transportation technologies with its experience of half a century in the automotive sector, Farplas invested in Büyütech that developed Turkiye’s first smart camera at an amount of 2.5 million Euros.

Being one of the leading firms in closely following developing technologies and adapting them to the business world with an investor’s point of view brought about by its 50-year sector experience and its Fark Labs, an innovation center established to design a better future, Farplas invested an amount of 2.5 million Euros in Büyütech, which developed image processing, artificial intelligence products, and solutions in the field of advanced-level driving support systems that have an important place in the transformation of the automotive sector.

Having been founded by Ömer Orkun Düztaş and Alparslan Işıklı in 2011 and starting its activities at METU Technocity, Büyütech has been singled out by R.T. Ministry of Industry and Technology as one of the 3 best technological venture capital companies in Turkiye in 2013.

Today, Büyütech continues its activities actively in 120 countries with more than 80,000 products and develops smart camera systems that ensure devices perceive the world just as it is perceived by human beings. Büyütech develops, within its own body, software and hardware solutions in many fields such as the defense industry (ranging from nationalization and development of high technology products to industrial image processing) and the automotive sector (such as driver’s fatigue detection, lane change, mirror, and rear view camera systems).

Ahu Büyükkuşoğlu Serter, President of Fark Holding, expressed her thoughts about the investment: “What we attach utmost importance in the process of investing in ventures is the team’s competence and whether the idea in question and the solution is competitive not only on the national but also the on the global scale. The fact that the camera, image processing, and artificial intelligence solutions designed by Büyütech to generate real-time three-dimensional images, which are the first of their kind in Turkiye, are actively used worldwide is an important indicator that it will be successful on a global scale as well. By supporting Büyütech’s vision of becoming “Europe’s hub of camera technology” with Farplas’s experience and credibility in the automotive sector, we will strive to make Büyütech the most-preferred camera systems company in the automotive sector. With this investment, we will have widened the extent of the services provided by Farplas, which is a leader in interior lighting, cockpit design, and interior trim pieces, to its customers.”

Haluk Akçalı, CEO of Farplas: “We will continue to support technological ventures in order to ensure Turkiye’s development of high technology and access to the world.”

Akçalı said that Farplas would grow with the investments in next-generation software, electric and electronic solutions in line with its 2028 strategies, and added, “We spare no effort in transforming our products and solutions in line with the connected, autonomous, sharing and electrical vehicle trend in the automotive sector. To that end, we have started to take our place in new areas such as sharing economy, connected cars, and micro-mobility with new initiatives. Also in order to meet the needs of the transition towards fully autonomous and fully electrical driving, we as Farplas support and diversify our innovative, creative, and environmentally-friendly products that we have developed with electronic- and software-intensive solutions. I value our cooperation with Büyütech for the sensor, image processing, and software needs of our indoor and outdoor solutions for vehicles. With respect to ventures, it is a rather difficult process to meet the criteria of being a credible supplier/manufacturer as required by the automotive sector on one side and accelerating the long development processes by granting freedom to innovators on the other. At Farplas, we are convinced that we are experienced and successful in this regard. We carry out this arduous process pleasantly in order to incorporate innovations into the body of our company, transfer technological novelties to the automotive sector from other areas, and become one of the ultimate winning companies. We believe that we will be a driving force for all of our shareholders in our way towards developing advanced technology, becoming a production center, and improving these solutions by opening them up abroad with our venture investments, technology investments, and multidimensional R&D projects.

Büyütech aims to become the eyes of millions of vehicles worldwide.

Ömer Orkun Düztaş, founding partner and CEO of Büyütech, emphasized that as an initiative growing out of Turkiye, they focused on camera, image processing, and artificial intelligence technologies for 10 years. Düztaş added, “Today, higher-level driving support systems have become crucial for vehicles. The importance of camera-based systems increases day by day in this field. At Büyütech, we work on camera-based smart systems which will ensure devices’ perception of the world just as it is perceived by humans and thus increase driving comfort and security. Thanks to our partnership with Farplas, a global player in the automotive sector, we have come one step closer to our target of becoming the best automotive initiative that is opening up to the world from Turkiye.” As such, he mentioned that Büyütech had the potential to become an international brand.

Alparslan Işıklı, founding partner and CTO of Büyütech, expressed his opinions about the investment: “We have transferred our 10-year experience into the automotive sector in recent years. We develop innovative products for the world on devices’ perception of the world just as human beings. Our visions coincided with Farplas at this point. We believe they will be a good partner in our journey to open up to the world. We aim to become a worldwide technological giant in no time.”