Syntonym raises $900K investment for generative AI solutions

Syntonym, one of Turkey’s generative AI startups, raised $900K in a seed investment round led by Simya VC. The round also included participation from Türkiye Kalkınma Fonu and INVEST 101, established in partnership with ODTÜ Teknokent, as well as APY Ventures and TT Ventures GSYF. With this investment, Syntonym aims to grow in the U.S., European, and UK markets.

Syntonym, a generative AI startup that develops synthetic data anonymization technology to protect individuals’ privacy against the rapid increase of image recording devices and facial recognition technologies, raised $900K in a seed investment round led by Simya VC, which was launched by 212 with the goal of investing in early-stage startups.

The investment round was joined by Invest 101, APY Ventures, and TT Ventures GSYF. With this investment, Syntonym aims to expand in the U.S., European, and UK markets.

Syntonym, a local startup founded to address the issue that visual datasets containing personal data cannot be used in AI training and data analysis due to regulatory restrictions, offers a secure solution that allows individuals to protect their privacy when needed by generating unique and anonymous faces in real time on mobile, cloud, or on-premise platforms. With this investment, Syntonym is preparing to bring its patented technology—developed through long-standing R&D efforts—to global brands.

In its growth journey, Syntonym will execute its strategy for global customer acquisition together with Alchemist Accelerator, one of the world’s leading accelerator programs and a partner of Simya VC. The startup will particularly focus on growth in the U.S., European, and UK markets.

Özcan: “We are not followers but pioneers in the field of Generative AI”

Batuhan Özcan, Founder and CEO of Syntonym, stated:

“Facial recognition technologies are rapidly evolving to the point where a person’s identity can be identified from a single photo. When we consider that facial recognition technologies can be combined with both external and in-cabin cameras used in autonomous driving, we unfortunately face a rather pessimistic outlook for the future. Recent news in international media highlighting national security issues arising from autonomous vehicle cameras unfortunately supports this concern.

As Syntonym, our mission is to establish a balance between technological advancements and our fundamental rights and freedoms. We set out to meet the need for visual data required by AI-based technologies without violating individuals’ expectations of privacy. By focusing on R&D efforts to reduce the hardware and power requirements of our realistic synthetic face generation models, we have succeeded in producing the highest quality outputs without loss across edge computing, cloud server infrastructures, and ultimately mobile and desktop devices.

In this context, while preserving important metrics such as facial expressions, eye movements, and head positions, we also remove biometric data. Thus, the outputs we generate are transformed into AI training and analysis data that are compliant with GDPR/KVKK for companies that require visual data. At the current stage of our technology, we are positioned not as followers but as pioneers in the global Generative AI field. In this way, we have been able to develop data privacy solutions that can benefit not only organizations processing visual data but also end users.”