Turkiye’s leading industrial company, Tupras, will be powered by Tupras Ventures to invest in technology venture companies that will be decisive in the energy system of the future, to form strategic cooperations, to develop the ecosystem, and to reach domestic and international technology startups.
Adopting entrepreneurship as a corporate culture, advancing with the aim of producing the energy of the future with the strategic transformation plan it has announced and becoming a carbon neutral energy company by 2050, Tupras has taken another step that will guide the transformation in the energy sector.
The company, which continues to grow by using both internal and external innovation resources effectively, aims to invest in technology venture companies that will play a decisive role in the energy system of the future, establish strategic collaborations and develop the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Tupras Ventures plans to invest in domestic and international technology initiatives in the fields of sustainable refining, biofuels, zero-carbon electricity and green hydrogen, which Tupras focuses on within the scope of its strategic plan, especially carbon management, smart information technologies, Industry 4.0, energy efficiency, environment, recycling and waste management.
Tupras Ventures, which will invest in strategic focus areas in a wide geography, especially in North America and Europe, will offer startups the opportunity to try and scale their technologies, and will also open up Tupras’ industry experience and know-how.
“Our Ventures company will make a significant contribution to our efforts to develop the business areas of the future”
Levent Zagra, Deputy General Manager of Tupras Innovation and Investment Projects, who made evaluations on the subject, said;
“We have left behind more than a year in our Strategic Transformation Plan. We are taking firm steps forward on our journey to become carbon neutral by 2050. In our transformation journey, we see new technology and business models as the most important tools that will increase our competitiveness. Venture Capital is a very valuable field that will add value to us as we invest in the new business lines of the future. We carry out studies for today’s and tomorrow’s businesses with innovation, open innovation and startup collaborations. At the same time, we continue to develop cooperation by experiencing the innovative technologies of domestic and foreign enterprises in our refineries. The establishment of Tupras Ventures is the first of these steps. This company will make a significant contribution to our work in sustainable refining, biofuels, green hydrogen and zero-carbon electricity focus areas for energy transformation.”
“We aim to catch new growth areas with open innovation studies”
Levent Zagra stated that they continue their efforts to spread the innovation and entrepreneurship climate throughout the company, to support cultural transformation, and to generate permanent value from these studies.
“We actively continue our open innovation efforts to add value to both Tupras and entrepreneurs by integrating into the domestic and international entrepreneurship ecosystem. With open innovation studies, we aim to find innovative solutions to the needs of the company and to catch new growth areas by following the latest technologies in line with energy transformation. We are constantly scanning about emerging technologies in Turkiye and abroad, and we examine over a thousand startups every year. We have been an investor of the Emerald Technology Ventures Venture capital fund, which is considered one of the leading energy funds in Europe, since 2020. We have collaborated with 32 startups so far. We cooperated with startups from more than 10 countries in 3 continents (North America, Europe and Asia). Within our company, venture-institution cooperation processes were carried out with a total of more than 30 departments, and more than 120 internal stakeholders took part in these studies. We offered pilots to startups, carried out joint innovation projects, became their customers and signed special cooperation agreements.”
Source: Egirisim / Prepared by Irem Yildiz