Turkish data platform Hardal raises $1.55M to scale AI infrastructure globally
Hardal, a Turkish data platform that unifies web, mobile, and CRM data into a single infrastructure, has raised $1.55M in a funding round led by Simya VC. Invest101 — managed by the Turkey Development Fund and METU Technopark — along with Maxis Ventures and Shark and Partners also participated.
The startup plans to use the capital to expand globally, grow its team, and strengthen its AI infrastructure.
The rapid advance of AI has made clean, unified data collection more critical than ever. Companies increasingly need to gather, standardise, and route data from websites, mobile apps, CRM systems, and marketing tools — all while complying with tightening privacy regulations.
Hardal positions itself at the intersection of data ownership, privacy, and AI — a space investors see as one of the most important infrastructure layers for the coming years. "Companies' need to collect, enrich, and use data in a controlled way is becoming increasingly critical for operational efficiency and regulatory compliance," said Selma Bahçıvanoğlu, managing partner at Simya VC.
Hardal competes in a crowded global market for customer data platforms and data infrastructure tools, facing well-funded incumbents like Segment (owned by Twilio) and mParticle. Scaling from a strong regional position in Turkey and Europe to a truly global footprint will require significant commercial traction and product differentiation.
At $1.55M, the round is modest by global standards, which could limit the speed of international expansion if the company needs to outspend larger rivals on go-to-market efforts.
Hardal is still at the early growth stage, yet it has assembled a notably diverse cap table — mixing a 212-backed accelerator fund (Simya VC), state-linked corporate capital (Invest101), and sector-focused investors — signalling rising institutional confidence in Turkey's early-stage ecosystem. The round also underscores a broader infrastructure bet: as AI models become commoditised, investor attention is shifting to the data-plumbing layer that feeds them, where ownership and governance of first-party data can become a durable competitive moat.
Read more: teknotalk.com
