ITU ARI Teknokent on Media
August 4 2026
İTÜ ARI Teknokent’s international acceleration program, Innogate, will prepare Turkish artificial intelligence startups for the U.S. market through the U.S. Silicon Valley AI Program, launched in collaboration with Plug and Play and BridgeX Ventures. Following a three-month training and mentoring process, participating startups will travel to Silicon Valley to meet with investors and corporations, gaining access to business development and investment opportunities.
Innogate Always On is a program designed to support technology startups throughout their entire global growth journey. This time, the destination is Silicon Valley. Selected Turkish AI startups will undergo an intensive three-month preparation process before entering one of the world’s most competitive markets equipped with the right knowledge, strategies, and connections.
The program is being implemented in collaboration with Plug and Play, one of the world’s leading global innovation platforms, and BridgeX Ventures, an early-stage investment fund focused on the artificial intelligence value chain. Through this strong partnership, the program aims to help AI startups accelerate their entry into the U.S. market, connect with the right corporate customers, develop their first commercial partnerships, and engage with international investors.
The program consists of two phases. In the first phase, following a kick-off event scheduled for the fourth week of August, startups will participate in online sessions every Tuesday through October. During this period, participants will develop their U.S. market entry strategies step by step while receiving comprehensive training on the Silicon Valley ecosystem, U.S.-specific product-market fit, sales and growth strategies, company incorporation and state-specific structures, investment processes, and investor pitch preparation.
The training sessions will be delivered by U.S.-based entrepreneurship ecosystem professionals, investors, legal experts, and academics from Stanford University.
In the second phase, startups will travel to Silicon Valley in the first week of November to meet with leading players in the region’s technology and investment ecosystem. At the heart of the visit will be the Plug and Play Winter Summit, scheduled to take place in Sunnyvale from November 3–5, 2026.
Throughout the summit, startups will have the opportunity to participate in pre-arranged B2B meetings with corporations and investors. The program will conclude with a dedicated Demo Day exclusively organized for Innogate participants.
By the end of the program, participants will have a clearly defined growth strategy for the U.S. market, a targeted list of potential customers and business partners, investor presentations, and pre-arranged business meetings in Silicon Valley—marking a significant step forward in their global growth journey.
The program will be led by the İTÜ ARI Teknokent team together with İpek Çeliksöz, an İTÜ alumna and founder of San Francisco-based investment platform CatalystX Global.
Commenting on the program, Prof. Dr. Attila Dikbaş, General Manager of İTÜ ARI Teknokent, stated that Innogate has so far conducted 15 acceleration programs in the United States and four in the United Kingdom. In addition, exploration programs carried out in Germany and the Netherlands have contributed to the international expansion of more than 350 technology companies.
Highlighting that artificial intelligence has been at the center of the transformation taking place across global technology ecosystems in recent years, Dikbaş noted that today, one in every three startups within their ecosystem develops AI-focused solutions.
Prof. Dr. Dikbaş emphasized that the rapid development of artificial intelligence has made it increasingly critical for startups to connect with the right partners and strong ecosystems at an early stage in order to gain a competitive advantage internationally.
“Silicon Valley is one of the world’s most important hubs for AI startups thanks to its wealth of knowledge, extensive investor network, and business development opportunities. For this reason, it continues to be one of the most strategic meeting points for supporting the global growth ambitions of our startups,” he said.
Benjamin Kloss, Managing Director for the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye at Plug and Play, one of the program partners, said:
“As Plug and Play, we evaluate thousands of startups from around the world every year and connect the strongest teams with corporations and investors. Türkiye has long stood out as an ecosystem with a high concentration of technical talent. Through this collaboration with İTÜ ARI Teknokent, we look forward to welcoming Turkish AI startups to the stage at our November summit and connecting them with our global network!”
Doğakan Toka, Founding and Managing Partner of BridgeX Ventures, shared his views on the program:
“We are delighted to collaborate with İTÜ ARI Teknokent as part of this program. At BridgeX Ventures, we invest in startups operating across different layers of the AI ecosystem, and we believe that connecting successful founders with the right investors, customers, and strategic partners is one of the most critical factors in achieving global growth.
This program brings Türkiye’s brightest AI startups together with one of the world’s leading entrepreneurship ecosystems while also strengthening the potential of the global Turkish entrepreneurship network. At the same time, it positions the region’s most successful founders at the forefront of the unprecedented wave of innovation taking place in artificial intelligence.”
Applications for the Innogate U.S. Silicon Valley AI Program are open until August 10, 2026, at https://innogate.org.
