Sheet ISurveyed Istanbul to Berlin2013 to 2026

Stipple engraving of Birol Aksu
Frontispiece The surveyor, Berlin.

BirolAksu

Co-founder & CTO · Berlin

I build engineering organisations and the platforms they run on. Twelve years in, from a humanitarian payments system in sixteen countries and a care marketplace to AI-native products that respond to how people feel.

Scroll to descend

Now52.52°N 13.40°E

Co-founder & CTO at SYLO

An AI-native mental wellbeing platform. Adaptive meditation that listens to stress and emotion instead of playing from a library.

Table A

Table of heights

€10.4M
raised as technical lead
37
engineers hired from zero
150M
people reached by humanitarian cash transfers
40%
of the funnel converting self-service
Traverse

Six summits, 2013 to now

  1. Station I2013 – 2014

    Envisage Creative

    Co-founder & CTO · Istanbul

    First company. iOS ordering, insurance and corporate platforms.

  2. Station II2014 – 2017

    RedRose

    Lead Front-End Architect · Field programmes, 16 countries

    ONEsystem, humanitarian cash transfer for 11 NGOs.

    • Owned the front-end architecture of a platform reaching ~150M beneficiaries.
    • Trained field staff and presented in country programmes.

  3. Station III2017 – 2019

    Zizooboats · FCG

    Tech Lead & Senior Engineer · Berlin

    Product engineering for a boat-rental marketplace and large web apps.

    • jQuery to React migration, monolith split into serverless services.
    • Dynamic rendering to win back organic search.

  4. Station IV2019 – 2021

    Atheneum

    Lead Developer · Berlin

    Global expert network across EMEA, APAC and the US.

    • Built an engineering organisation of 37 people across three teams during remote COVID hiring.
    • Owned the McKinsey Digital integration platform end to end.
    • Two internal tools doubled operations throughput.

  5. Station V2021 – 2026

    Marta

    Chief Technology Officer · Berlin

    Care-as-a-service marketplace for live-in caregivers.

    • Co-led €10.1M across Seed and Seed extension. KPMG tech due diligence passed without remediation.
    • 4 mobile and 3 web apps on one React/TypeScript codebase, all wired to Salesforce as the system of record.
    • A statistical matching algorithm with an ML success model lifted self-service conversion to 40%.
    • Data platform on Redshift and Metabase; GDPR lifecycle with automated PII anonymisation.

  6. Station VI2026 –

    SYLO

    Co-founder & CTO · Berlin

    AI-native mental wellbeing. €270K pre-seed.

    • Built the product from zero to live on mobile and web.
    • LLM content generation paired with user-state modelling, so sessions adapt to stress and emotion.
    • A multi-agent content platform that drafts, fact-checks and publishes from academic sources, unattended.
    • ~76% of users report emotional relief after their first session.
Plate II

From the Bosphorus to the Spree

Copperplate engraving: the Bosphorus at Istanbul flowing into Berlin, the television tower on the far bank

41.01°N 28.98°EIstanbul, where it started. Berlin, where it continues.52.52°N 13.40°E

Legend

Notes on method

  1. I

    Architecture follows the unit economics

    Serverless where it is cheaper per user, Kubernetes where it is not. Workload by workload, never by dogma.

  2. II

    One codebase, many surfaces

    Seven apps from one React/TypeScript codebase cut time to market by roughly half.

  3. III

    Teams are the product behind the product

    Hiring loops, structured interviews and a culture that ships. Built from zero, three times.

  4. IV

    AI in production, not in a demo

    Matching models, adaptive content and agent systems that run unattended and are measured.

Sources

References

  • Business Insider2026Berlin AI startup SYLO raises €270K pre-seed
  • TechCrunch2022Turning live-in care into a gig-economy platform
  • Gründermetropole Berlinn.d.Marta closes Seed extension
Correspondence

Send word to Berlin

birol@birolaksu.com

LinkedIn52.52°N 13.40°E