$26M for Fashion E-Commerce Company Trendyol.com

Trendyol.com is getting a financial boost today with investments from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Tiger Global. Based in Turkey, Trendyol is riding the nation's recent tech boom. With an estimated 35 million Internet users (45% of the population), Trendyol.com is in an interesting position right now, as the Turkish market is growing but has not yet become overcrowded with competition. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has previously invested in Google GOOG, Amazon AMZN, Intuit INTU, VeriSign Inc. VRSN and Zynga, comes to Trendyol.com with its first investment in Turkey. When combined with Tiger Global's latest investment, the fashion e-commerce site has raised a total of $26 million. “While the West may have experienced an e-commerce boom a decade ago, countries further east, such as Turkey, are now just moving through that economic and distribution cycle,” Trendyol boasted in a press release. “What makes Turkey unique as an emerging market is its high credit card penetration rate of approximately 60 percent with 46M credit cards BKM, and the third highest online engagement in Europe (source: comScore).” “We're particularly thrilled that Kleiner Perkins could see the market opportunity for e-commerce in Turkey and Trendyol as leading the way,” said Demet Mutlu, Trendyol's founder and CEO. “Trendyol.com's mission has been to revolutionize fashion in Turkey and make it accessible to all: for those who don't have the time to shop; the brands or stores in their cities; and/or for those who cannot afford high retail prices.” Mutlu added that the new financing will be used for key growth initiatives including “enhancing our customer service, investment in operations, increasing member acquisition and further accelerating our growth within Turkey as well as other markets – all to deliver the best customer experience.” Aileen Lee, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said the venture firm is “very excited about Trendyol.com's growth, quality of user experience, innovation in the fashion industry and its first-class team of entrepreneurs.” “Trendyol.com represents the new era of Internet innovators delivering on the promise of the social Web,” added Mary Meeker, another partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “We look forward to helping the Trendyol.com team continue to grow the business and are optimistic about its continued success in this high growth market.” Lee Fixel, managing director of Tiger Global Management, is impressed with Trendyol's ability to leverage economic trends in Turkey “such as high credit card penetration rates and localized marketing.” “Trendyol.com is also smartly applying crowdsourcing to its business model and state-of-the art logistics to deliver on product delivery cycles which engender a loyal customer base,” Fixel said. With this latest investment, Trendyol has now secured more than $50 million in total financing since the site launched in March 2010. Follow me @LouisBedigian