The problem
As late as the 2010s, Turkish retail was overwhelmingly offline: shoppers outside Istanbul faced thin selection, cash-only habits, and no trusted delivery or returns infrastructure — so e-commerce penetration sat near 10%.
How it works
Hepsiburada started in 2000 as a first-party retailer holding its own inventory, added an open marketplace in 2015, and layered on Hepsipay payments (2016), next-day logistics, groceries, travel, and a Premium loyalty program — a super-app for “everything is here” (hepsiburada). It listed on Nasdaq on July 1, 2021, the first-ever Turkish IPO there. In January 2025 Kazakhstan’s Kaspi.kz closed a ~$1.127B deal for a 65.41% controlling stake (agreed October 2024); both brands operate separately while Kaspi replicates its fintech-plus-marketplace playbook. CEO since January 2023 is Nilhan Onal Gökçetekin.
Pain points
Fake or flaky sellers, delivery that never reaches Anatolian provinces on time, payment distrust, and painful returns.
Business model
Take rates on marketplace GMV (68.9% of volume), margins on 1P retail, Hepsipay wallet fees, Premium subscriptions, merchant advertising, and fulfilment/logistics services.
Challenges
Trendyol leads the market and competes brutally on price and speed; inflation and currency pressure squeeze Turkish wallets; and Q1 2026 shows the tension — revenue +22.9% and EBITDA up 3x to TRY 420.3M, yet net loss widened to TRY 992M on growth and marketing spend.
Funding
- Raised: MISSING (IPO proceeds undisclosed in cited sources).
- Valuation: ~$3.9B at July 2021 Nasdaq IPO (TechCrunch); shares marked up to $14.
- Control: Kaspi.kz holds 65.41% (~$1.127B, closed January 29, 2025) targeting a 100-million-person addressable market (Nasdaq).
Latest — May 2026
Hepsiburada’s Q1 2026 6-K (reported May 7, 2026): order growth 22.1% and GMV growth 28.4% year-on-year, revenue +22.9%, 11.6M active customers ordering 7.2x a year, 101.6k merchants — with EBITDA of TRY 420.3M against a TRY 992M net loss driven by growth investments.