Marti Technologies, Inc. (MRT)

Executive Summary / Key Takeaways

• Ride-Hailing as the Growth Engine: Marti's strategic pivot from owned electric vehicles to a ride-hailing marketplace is driving a 70% revenue increase in H1 2025, with unique riders growing 107% year-over-year to 2.28 million, demonstrating powerful network effects in a market where Marti is the only scaled operator of both car and motorcycle hailing.

• First-Mover Advantage in an Underpenetrated Market: Türkiye's ride-hailing market is at a pre-2015 U.S. stage, with an estimated $3 billion annual revenue potential at maturity. Marti's expansion from 4 to 20 cities in 2025 covers half the population and two-thirds of GDP, establishing a moat that local competitors cannot easily replicate.

• Capital Efficiency Improving but Profitability Remains Elusive: While contribution margins in four core cities are positive and the two-wheeled EV segment's losses have narrowed dramatically, the company still posted a -290% profit margin and -$25 million in operating cash burn over the trailing twelve months, requiring flawless execution to avoid a liquidity crunch.

• Network Effects Create Defensibility: Multi-modal riders exhibit 3x higher rides and 2.7x higher revenue per rider than single-service users, while driver supply grows organically as the marketplace expands—Marti reports no constraints in onboarding additional drivers, a critical advantage in a supply-constrained market.

• Valuation Reflects Growth Premium but Demands Perfect Execution: At $2.45 per share, the $192 million market capitalization prices in successful 2025 guidance achievement ($34 million revenue, nearly double 2024), leaving no margin for error on expansion timing, take rate optimization, or macroeconomic stability in Turkey.

Setting the Scene: The Making of Türkiye's Mobility Super App

Marti Technologies, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Istanbul, began as a two-wheeled electric vehicle operator—e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-mopeds—building a user base of millions across Turkish cities. This foundation, while capital-intensive, created something more valuable than a rental fleet: a trusted brand and a mobile-first customer acquisition channel. In October 2022, Marti made a decisive strategic shift, launching ride-hailing as a pilot service. By 2023, the results were compelling enough to establish ride-hailing as a distinct operating segment, marking the beginning of a fundamental business model transformation.

The company now operates what it calls Türkiye's leading mobility super app, offering six services across ride-hailing (cars, motorcycles, taxis) and owned EV rentals. This matters because it positions Marti not as a commodity transportation provider but as a platform capturing multiple use cases within a single user relationship. In a country of 85-90 million people with 24 cities exceeding 1 million population, most secondary markets have never experienced tech-enabled mobility solutions. The taxi ecosystem is notoriously inefficient, creating a structural gap that ride-hailing can fill. Marti's management estimates the total addressable market at $3 billion annually at maturity, based on 2.9 million daily rides generating $10 billion in gross bookings with a 30% take rate.

Competitively, Marti faces local players like BinBin, Hop, Tripy, and Scotty in the two-wheeled segment, but holds a decisive advantage in ride-hailing: it is the only operator offering car-hailing and motorcycle-hailing at scale in Türkiye. This exclusivity creates pricing power. As Founder and CEO Oguz Alper Oktem notes, "We are the only real solution to help people move around the city," leading to inelastic demand that allows Marti to prioritize growth over immediate monetization. While BinBin generates positive EBITDA from its focused e-scooter operations, its narrower scope limits its ability to compete with Marti's multi-modal ecosystem. Hop's high margins from exclusive municipal contracts pose a regional threat, but Marti's national scale and network effects provide a stronger long-term moat.

Technology, Products, and Strategic Differentiation

Marti’s technological edge centers on three pillars: AI-driven optimization, multi-modal integration, and proprietary marketplace algorithms. In February 2024, Marti acquired Zoba, an AI-powered fleet optimization platform, integrating its dynamic deployment algorithms across operations. The impact was immediate: vehicles using Zoba's recommendations achieved 1.7x higher daily rides in Q1 2024 and 2.4x higher in Q2 2024, with the acquisition cost paid back within six months. This matters because it transforms a capital-intensive EV business into a data-driven operation, reducing waste and improving unit economics. For investors, this demonstrates management's ability to allocate capital toward high-ROI technology investments that compound over time.

The 2025 app redesign placed ride-hailing more prominently, yielding a 2% conversion rate improvement, a 4.9 App Store rating, and 16% weekly active user growth. More importantly, the multi-modal strategy creates powerful cross-sell dynamics: 70% of e-bike riders, 84% of e-moped users, 40% of car-hailing customers, and 83% of motorcycle-hailing users adopted these services after being introduced through another Marti offering. This zero-cost customer acquisition channel is a critical competitive advantage, driving 3x higher rides and 2.7x higher revenue per rider for multi-modal users compared to single-service riders. The implication is clear: every dollar spent acquiring a ride-hailing customer also deepens engagement across the entire platform, improving lifetime value and reducing churn.

Looking ahead, Marti has established an AI engineering team—described by management as "the most important team"—to optimize matching, pricing, and take rates. The company is also in active discussions with multiple partners to pioneer autonomous vehicle introduction in Türkiye, though management cautions that economic viability will take longer than in the U.S. due to lower revenue per kilometer. This long-term optionality, while not a near-term driver, positions Marti to maintain its first-mover advantage as technology evolves.

Financial Performance & Segment Dynamics

Marti’s financial results in H1 2025 tell a story of accelerating growth and improving capital efficiency, but also reveal persistent profitability challenges. Total revenue reached $14.3 million, a 70% increase from $8.4 million in H1 2024, driven almost entirely by ride-hailing monetization that began in October 2024. Unique ride-hailing riders grew 107% to 2.28 million, while registered drivers increased 92% to 327,000. Take rates reached the high single digits, and management sees significant upside potential. The four existing cities—Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Antalya—are already profitable on a contribution margin basis, defined as revenue minus variable costs and direct marketing.

The two-wheeled EV segment, while shrinking in scale (average daily vehicles deployed fell from 34,600 to 24,000), has dramatically improved efficiency. Total cost of revenues decreased 25% year-over-year, and gross profit margin improved 49%, demonstrating management's discipline in pruning unprofitable operations. The segment is no longer a cash sink but a strategic customer acquisition tool that feeds the higher-margin ride-hailing business. Marti will not increase EV scale before summer 2026, focusing all resources on ride-hailing expansion.

However, the consolidated picture remains challenging. Trailing twelve-month operating cash flow was -$25.08 million, and free cash flow was -$25.41 million. The operating margin sits at -87.52%, and profit margin at -290.07%. The company raised a $23 million convertible note in April 2025, which management states will fully fund growth for the next 12 months. This creates a clear timeline for execution: Marti must demonstrate a path to positive cash generation before requiring additional capital. The balance sheet shows a current ratio of 0.98 and quick ratio of 0.45, indicating limited liquidity cushion. While management asserts they are not looking to raise additional capital, the burn rate demands that the 2025 guidance—$34 million revenue and $2.3 million EBITDA improvement—be achieved on schedule.

Outlook, Management Guidance, and Execution Risk

Marti’s 2025 guidance reflects a deliberate trade-off: sacrificing near-term profitability for market share capture. The company aims to nearly double revenue to $34 million and reach 3.3 million unique riders and 450,000 registered drivers by year-end. This incorporates expansion into six new metropolitan areas in 2025, bringing the total to ten cities, followed by an additional ten cities by November 2025. Critically, management does not plan to monetize services in these new cities in 2025, prioritizing growth over immediate revenue. This strategy is rational in an early-stage market with inelastic demand, but it extends the cash burn timeline and increases execution risk.

The guidance assumes the four core cities will continue generating positive contribution margins while new markets scale. Management notes no constraints in onboarding drivers, with network effects actually accelerating sign-ups as rider demand grows. This dynamic is essential: if driver supply were to become a bottleneck, growth would stall and unit economics would deteriorate. The company is building organizational capacity to support this expansion, growing the ride-hailing team from 120 to 180 members in H1 2025, with a target of 260 by year-end. New departments in AI engineering, growth/CRM, and performance marketing suggest a professionalization of operations necessary for scaled expansion.

The $2.3 million adjusted EBITDA improvement in 2025, while positive, still leaves the company deeply unprofitable. Management's commentary frames this as an investment phase, comparing the market to U.S. ride-hailing pre-2015. The risk is that Türkiye's macroeconomic environment—characterized by elevated inflation and currency depreciation—could compress consumer spending and increase operational costs faster than Marti can scale. Co-Founder Cankut Durgun's observation that "Turkey is a place where there's mild but constant political turmoil" acknowledges this reality, while CEO Oguz Alper Oktem's assertion that "our business model is ironclad against any type of negative situation" reflects confidence that transportation demand is recession-resistant. Investors must weigh whether this resilience holds true during a prolonged economic downturn.

Risks and Asymmetries

The investment thesis hinges on three critical factors, each carrying material downside risk. First, capital efficiency versus cash burn. While ride-hailing monetization has begun, the company still burned $25 million in cash over the past year. The $23 million convertible note provides runway, but if 2025 revenue falls short of the $34 million target or if new city launches prove more expensive than projected, Marti could face a liquidity crunch within 12-18 months. The negative 290% profit margin and -87% operating margin show how far the company must travel to achieve sustainable unit economics.

Second, regulatory and macroeconomic stability. Türkiye's political environment, while familiar to local operators, creates uncertainty. The government's decision to tax ride-hailing drivers is viewed positively by management as a step toward full regulation, but it also increases costs for drivers, potentially reducing supply. Currency depreciation raises the cost of imported vehicles and technology, compressing margins. While management has successfully implemented strategic price increases in the past, the interplay between inflation, consumer purchasing power, and ride-hailing demand remains a key variable.

Third, competitive erosion and execution at scale. Marti's first-mover advantage is defensible but not invincible. BinBin's profitability ($5.5 million EBITDA, 23.8% gross margin) and Hop's exclusive municipal contracts demonstrate that focused competitors can carve out sustainable niches. If Marti's rapid expansion into 20 cities strains operational quality or if the app redesign's conversion improvements don't sustain, user experience could suffer, opening the door for competitors. The company's ability to maintain 4.9 App Store ratings while scaling will be a critical quality indicator.

On the upside, asymmetries exist in take rate optimization and autonomous vehicle adoption. Management explicitly states they are pricing take rates "as low as possible while maintaining financial strength to promote maximum growth." If network effects strengthen faster than expected, Marti could increase take rates from high single digits toward the 30% long-term target without losing share, creating substantial revenue upside. The autonomous vehicle discussions, while a decade away from economic viability in Türkiye, provide a free option on technological disruption.

Valuation Context

At $2.45 per share, Marti trades at a $192.26 million market capitalization and $271.48 million enterprise value. Given the company's unprofitable status, traditional earnings multiples are meaningless; the -290% profit margin and -$0.94 book value render P/E and P/B ratios nonsensical. Instead, valuation must be assessed through revenue multiples and cash runway.

Using 2025 guidance of $34 million revenue, the stock trades at approximately 8.0x forward EV/Revenue. This compares to BinBin, which trades at 56.3x trailing revenue but generates positive EBITDA and maintains a 23.8% gross margin. The valuation gap reflects Marti's growth trajectory—70% revenue growth versus BinBin's moderate pace—but also its profitability deficit. Marti's 22.8% gross margin, while improved, remains below BinBin's, highlighting the cost of rapid expansion.

The balance sheet provides 12 months of runway at current burn rates, with the $23 million April 2025 convertible note expected to fully fund operations through the expansion phase. The 0.98 current ratio and 0.45 quick ratio indicate tight liquidity, meaning any revenue shortfall or cost overrun could force a dilutive capital raise. For investors, the key metric is cash flow trajectory: if Marti can achieve positive contribution margins in new cities within 12-18 months and reach EBITDA breakeven by 2026, the current valuation could prove attractive. If not, the company risks a distressed financing scenario.

Conclusion

Marti Technologies has engineered a compelling strategic pivot from asset-heavy EV rentals to a capital-light ride-hailing marketplace, capturing first-mover advantage in Türkiye's $3 billion mobility opportunity. The 70% revenue growth, expanding network effects, and improving capital efficiency in the EV segment demonstrate a management team focused on value creation. Multi-modal integration creates a defensible moat, while the AI-driven optimization platform acquired through Zoba provides a technological edge that competitors cannot easily replicate.

However, the investment thesis remains highly speculative. The -290% profit margin, -$25 million annual cash burn, and tight liquidity position demand flawless execution of the 2025 expansion plan. While management's confidence in Türkiye's demand resilience and driver supply elasticity is supported by early data, the macroeconomic environment and competitive pressures from profitable local players like BinBin and Hop create tangible risks. The stock's valuation at 8.0x forward revenue prices in successful guidance achievement, leaving no margin for error.

For investors, the critical variables are the pace of cash burn reduction as new cities scale and the timing of take rate optimization. If Marti can demonstrate positive operating cash flow by early 2026 while maintaining 50%+ revenue growth, the company could cement its position as Türkiye's dominant mobility platform. If not, the combination of capital intensity and competitive pressure may erode the very network effects that make the story attractive. The next 12 months will determine whether this is a capital-efficient growth story or a cautionary tale about expanding too far, too fast, in an unforgiving macro environment.