Sina Afra, The Serial Entrepreneur

Sina Afra was born on October 21, 1968, in Ankara. Afra's father, a diplomat, spent most of his life abroad. Titled Serial Entrepreneur, Afra worked for different companies before taking that title. The first of these was the consulting and financial advisory firm KPMG. Having served in this company for 12 years, Afra resigned from his position as Managing Partner.

eBay became the second company Sina Afra worked for. He served on eBay's Germany Executive Board. Afra made GittiGidiyor's first purchase on behalf of eBay herself. At the same time, he became a Board Member of GittiGidiyor and eBay Turkey representative in eBay. While working at eBay, Afra met an entrepreneur who would change her career life. Inspired by him, he decided to become an entrepreneur himself.

Sina Afra and Markafoni

Afra's first entrepreneurship was Markafoni. In 2008, he became the Chairman and CEO of Markafoni, of which he was a founding partner. In 2011 Markafoni was sold to a South African company called Naspers. This deal went down in history as one of the biggest sales in Turkish internet history. In addition to sales, Markafoni has become a remarkable platform in a very short time with its growth rate of 2.5 years.

Apart from Sina Afra & Markafoni, he also undersigned much entrepreneurship. Afra, the founder of more than 20 digital startups such as Zizigo, MissPera, Modnakasta, BransGalaxy, Brandsexclusive, Brankmarka, is known as a serial entrepreneur.

Embarked on a New Road with Tiko

By 2014, Afra sold all of his shares in Markafoni and left the company completely.

In July 2017, Afra embarked on a new path with his new entrepreneurship called Tiko. Headquartered in Istanbul, Tiko expanded rapidly in Europe, where its operation centre is located. Tiko serves as an application that combines home buying and selling transactions with artificial intelligence.

Entrepreneurship has become, in Afra's words, an “indispensable” position in his life. Afra has achieved many successes thanks to the ideas of which he is the founder. He established the Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation in 2014 with a group of friends in order to transfer some of his possessions to new entrepreneurs. With this foundation, he aimed to contribute to the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey. He wanted to draw the attention of young people towards entrepreneurship.

The Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation is financed only by corporate and individual donations. Since 2019, the foundation has had numerous Fellows.

The number of applications received by the foundation, which only 6 thousand entrepreneurs applied in 2014 when it was founded, reached 114 thousand in 2020.

Recognized as an Angel Investor

Sina Afra has been making investments as an Angel Investor since 2007. Turkey, Germany, Netherlands, USA, England, South Africa and Switzerland are among the countries it invests in. It is known that Afra has made 36 investments until 2020. Investments are made through Afra Global 3.

Won Many Awards

Afra stated that he was always ashamed of receiving an award throughout his life. He added that he experienced the joy of the awards he received later.

Afra has won more than 30 awards so far. Forbes awarded him Turkey's Greatest Minds in 2019.

Afra was included in the World's 100 Most Important Technological People list by Wired Magazine. He was the only Turkish in the list of Europe's 100 Most Important Entrepreneurs by Wired Magazine in 2014 and 2015.

It won Webrazzi's Angel Investor of the Year and Web Entrepreneur of the Year awards, which were concluded by public voting.

In 2016, for the first time in his life, Afra took charge of a company in which he has no shares. He became an Independent Board Member of DeFacto.

Sina Afra and His Passion For Fenerbahçe

Afra is a business person who is also very interested in sports. Football is another passion for him. Afra, a Fenerbahçe fan, has been working with "Fenerbahçe Futbol". He is an Independent Member of the Board of Directors. He stated that he considers his duty here superior to all the duties he has held throughout his career.

Sina Afra pioneered the establishment of the 1907 Fenerbahçe eSports team in 2016. He became a professional in eSports with the title of President. The team he chaired became the 2017 TBF Turkey champion. Afterwards, they won the 2019 and 2020 KMF Turkey championships. 1907 Fenerbahçe eSpor participated in the World Championship in 2017 and was watched by 52 million people. The team closed 2018 with numerous awards. They became the champion of the Academy League in 2019.

Sina Afra continues to write on his blog sinaafra.com. Besides his blog, he publishes articles in scientific and popular journals. Afra is also the owner of over 100 articles in Turkish, English and German. The 52-year-old serial entrepreneur continues to support entrepreneurship in Turkey.