Brutally honeststartup mentorship.
I am Ozan Sonmez. I invest in startups and build accelerator programs, from Silicon Valley to the Middle East, and I now do it from Helsinki. In a 1-on-1 session you get no pep talk, just an honest read of what is holding back your raise, your traction or your team.
- 5000+
- Founders mentored
- 40+
- Accelerator programs built
- 15yrs
- Investing & program design
Corporates, accelerators and institutions Ozan has worked with
The book
Tech for Good:
Empires of Innovation
Practical strategies for building, scaling and funding impact-driven ventures, drawn from fifteen years of accelerators, corporate innovation programs and angel checks. Written for founders, innovators and changemakers who would rather hear the truth early.
What a session actually is
Honest feedback is the fastest capital you will ever raise.
I have mentored, judged and designed programs for 500 Startups, the UNDP, the Jack Ma Foundation, KAUST and UC Berkeley, and I put my own money into startups as an angel. So the feedback comes from someone who has to live with the answer too.
01
The pitch autopsy
We go through your deck slide by slide until the story holds up to a cold investor read. You will hear which sentence is losing you the meeting, and why.
Fundraising · Storytelling
02
Traction, not theatre
Decks often confuse activity with progress. We separate the numbers that prove a business from the ones that only keep a founder busy, then work on what the gap exposes.
GTM · Metrics
03
Founder under pressure
Co-founder conflict, burn rate, a team that is drifting, a round that will not close. After fifteen years of running programs I have watched these play out many times, and I will tell you how they usually end.
Team · Strategy
Corporate innovation, run like a startup
Ozan designs and runs intrapreneurship and innovation programs inside some of the largest companies in Europe and MENA.
Advisor & lead mentor, Intrapreneurship
Akbank's intrapreneurship program turns employee ideas into market-ready ventures. Two teams graduated with seed funding from Akbank's Early Stage Fund.
Startup School, co-led since 2022
Engineers inside a very large company learn to work like founders: start from a customer problem, test it fast, and kill the ideas that do not hold up.
Advisor, Ford Turkey
The 'Innovation Pools' methodology surfaced where innovation was really getting stuck inside the division, and brought lean startup practice to the teams running it.
Angel portfolio
I put money where the advice goes
A working portfolio across Turkey, the Gulf, Europe and the US. Most of these founders Ozan mentored first and invested in second.
Sensgreen
Into the inaugural Techstars batch in Abu Dhabi.
Silk Road Images
VC funding secured from twofour54, Abu Dhabi.
Scotty
First angel round, with investors including Justin Kan.
Naturansa
Brought to Silicon Valley; co-invested with Tim Draper.
Avokadio
Company setup and first traction in the US.
Scimagine
Early market traction and funding in Saudi Arabia.
TalentMondo
Mentored through initial global scaling in Europe.
Invidyo
Guided the pre-seed round ahead of their Series A.
Pony Express
Invested pre-covid; scaled to multiple US markets.
Bridgr
Invested and mentored into grant funding and MENA entry.
What Ozan builds
His own ventures
Ozan does not only advise companies. He runs them, and the advice you get comes from the same places where he has to make the calls himself.
- Active
The Brutally Honest
Co-founder
The house behind everything else, including the Brutally Honest Mentor assessment platform: tools and programs that give founders, investors, corporates and accelerators the feedback nobody else will give them.
Visit The Brutally Honest
- Active
SAGE HQ
Co-founder
Entrepreneurship training for high school and university students, running with schools in more than 20 countries.
Visit SAGE HQ
- Active
Idea Stormers Game
Co-creator
A board game that puts teams through the messy part of innovation: finding a real problem before falling in love with an idea.
Visit Idea Stormers Game
- Active
FOUNDER INSTITUTE TÜRKİYE
Co-director
Co-directing the Turkish chapter of Founder Institute, the AI-native company builder, taking people from first idea to a company that can raise.
Visit Founder Institute Türkiye
- Past
Zillion Pitches
Co-founder
Built after a 2017 pitch to Tim Draper went badly. A place for founders to practise the pitch before it counts.
No longer running
The network
Say what you need.
He knows where to look.
Ozan has lived and worked out of San Francisco, Istanbul, Riyadh and Helsinki, and the network did not stay in those four cities. Funds, accelerators, corporates and operators across several continents are one message away. Tell him what kind of person or partner your company needs right now, and if someone in that network fits, he will point you to them.
San Francisco
Berkeley, funds and the Valley operator crowd
Istanbul
Founder Institute, corporates and the local ecosystem
Riyadh
MENA programs, institutions and government innovation
Helsinki
Nordic deep tech, Slush and the EU network
Podcast
Empires of Innovation
Ozan's own show about how technology reshapes companies, ecosystems and the people inside them, in the same plain language founders get in a session.
Season 1
Tech for Good
A miniseries on technology, social impact and how founders raise money without giving up the mission. It later became the book.
Season 2
Startup Mind, Corporate Grind
Why entrepreneurial people leave big companies, why corporate and startup partnerships fall apart, and what actually works inside a complex organisation.
Guests
Founders, investors and program builders
Conversations with the people running accelerators, funds and ventures across Europe, the Middle East and Silicon Valley.
Speaking & programs
Stages, bootcamps and accelerator design
Keynotes, pitch masterclasses and full accelerator programs, from Slush in Helsinki to GITEX in Dubai. Ozan built the largest non-equity seed accelerator in Saudi Arabia at KAUST and designed the SDG Impact Accelerator with the UNDP, so the same programs get built for corporates, universities and development institutions.
Request Ozan as a speaker
Stages & programs he has been on
Slush
Mentor & judge · Helsinki
GITEX Impact
Speaker · Dubai
One Giant Leap
2026 speaker line-up · Global
Hamam Tech Summit
Speaker · Istanbul
Startup Disrupt
Speaker · London
UC Berkeley SCET
Global ambassador · Berkeley
Pirate Summit
Mentor · Cologne
KAUST
Head of New Ventures Accelerator · Thuwal
Bring the problem you have been avoiding.
One hour, one founder, zero pep talk. You leave with the honest read on your pitch, your traction and your next ninety days.