We're co-founders of Core Finance (www.core.ist), leading technology investment banking advisory and investment firm with offices in Miami and Istanbul. We have been co-investing as angels for the past four years. We believe that the best founders will prefer to only raise from value add investors. The founders know and trust us giving us the chance to be with them in their journey. This syndicate focuses on pre-seed to Series A and looking to invest in Miami based world class founders and operators.
We've co-invested alongside investors such as 776, Tribe Capital, Softbank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Soma Capital and ours deals have been marked up by investors such as Tiger Global Management, Valor Equity and other Tier 1 investors.
Yağız Sözmen:
Yağız is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at CORE and spearheaded the firm’s expansion and contributed to many company’s well-known transactions with a focus on cross-border Software and Technology transactions. During his 12 years working within the sector Yağız has advised and worked with many of the leading companies and investors including Firefly, Jawbone, Guggenheim Partners and Akinon. Counterparties in transaction Yağız advised included Klarna, NfX Ventures, Micro Focus and Tobii. Yağız's experience extends across a range of verticals, including fintech, mobility, SaaS software, cyber security, mobile gaming, e-commerce and digital advertising.
Alper Kiresepi:
Alper is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at CORE. Alper is a highly seasoned tech investment banker with extensive fund raising experience for high-growth businesses and passionate about helping technology entrepreneurs to build the companies of the future.
Having advised companies like Libra Softworks, Firefly, NEVS, Akinon, PayTR, Ace Games, Fuudy on fund raising transactions and Actera, NfX Ventures, Esas Holding, Microfocus on buy-side projects, Alper has successfully originated and executed +10 deals in 2021 alone with a combined transaction value of +$400M. Alper's experience extends across a range of verticals including mobility, mobile gaming, fintech, e-commerce, cybersecurity and web3.
Alp Canlı:
Alp is a Vice President at CORE. He is responsible for deal execution, origination and investment management with a focus on early stage and growth stage technology companies in fintech, SaaS, e-commerce, mobility and B2C verticals globally.
Prior to CORE, Alp was a VC investor at Revo Capital, the largest VC fund of Turkey with $150M+ AUM investing early-stage technology companies in Turkey and Eastern Europe with 25+ portfolio companies including Getir, Akinon, TransferGo, Onedio, Logiwa, Zizoo, Foriba and Paycore.
Select dealflow of the team includes:
- QuikNode (Pre-seed; co-investors: Tribe Capital, Softbank, 776, Lightspeed, Soma Cap and more)
- 8 Sleep (Series B; co-investors: Softbank)
- Mainstreet (Series A; co-investors: SignalFire)
- Vinovest (Seed)
- Upstream (Seed)
- Firefly (Series A; co-investors: NfX, Google Ventures and more)
- Weiq (Pre-seed)
- Morphoses (Pre-seed)
- Airlift (Series A)
- Haus (Seed)
- Zigazoo (Seed+)
We've investors and advisors in startup community for a long-time and have invested alongside top-tier venture capital funds. We have a deep LP network in Europe and Middle East that has been long interested in having chance to invested with us, and we wanted to open them the opportunity to do so in Miami based companies.
