In 2003, Bulent Kaytaz and few of his Executives formed a new company called Argela with a small team and amount of funding from SANKO. Every success story starts with a dream. Bulent’s dream was to become the premier software company addressing the Turkish and regional telecommunications market with a local R&D (and hence the name Argela, Arastirma Gelistirme Lab.) and by leveraging the local innovation.

He knew the sales cycles were long and producing an innovative telecom solution in the face of tough competition from well established giants was going to be extremely hard. Argela needed the best talent possible and recruited them from the top universities in Turkey. Bulent shared his vision and dream with the younger generation. Argela built a few products anticipating the needs, and initially sold them a low price for market penetration. The first product was RINGA, the first ring back tone service in Turkey, Avea launched using Argela software in 2004. R&D had many sleepless nights until then product was perfected and stabilized to become fail-proof. Argela extended his offerings with the unique SIP-to-Mobile gateway product (patented in US patent office), which then became Turk Telekom’s famous WIRO service in 2006. Bulent extended his footprint to the US in 2007 by building a subsidiary and offering the first video-advertisement sponsored VoIP service called Tuitalk. This was his step to overcome regulatory obstacles in Turkey in offering a VoIP service. He now has half a million loyal users on Tuitalk. Over the past 6 years, the company grew from a handful of motivated risk takers to a top notch firm with over 200 people and three offices. It’s offerings span many operators and many different services. The success story did not go unnoticed. Turk Telekom purchased all shares of Argela from SANKO in 2007 and became the sole owner.

Throughout it’s life-cycle, Argela has painstakingly learned what it take to become a successful startup all the way from infancy to adulthood. During this process, there was no one to hold hand and to show direction because technology start-up was a new concept in Turkey. There was no Venture Capital or Business Consultancy or other instruments to help grow the company. This inspired Argela to help new startups find their ways towards success and hence the Argela-Win program.