Alp SuleimanGrowth Partner

Consumer · Turkey (Istanbul)

Codeway / Retake

A studio from Istanbul claiming more than four hundred million dollars in annual revenue with no outside investment, over sixty mobile apps and heavy paid advertising; the largest scale claim from Turkey, with the least independent evidence.

Verdict: Gaps remain

Updated: 2026-10-06

01

Profile

What it does
A mobile app studio; more than sixty products across six verticals: Learna (language), Cosmic Jam (media), Sparked (education), Wellture (health), Wishlabs (AI creativity; home of Retake), Catalyst Apps (utilities; Cleanup) [1]. The first big success was the chat app Ask AI [4].
Founded
2020, Istanbul; a Barcelona office opened in June 2026 (secondary data) [4] [7]. Tracxn says 2019; the inconsistency is unverified [7].
Founders
Anıl Şimşek and Tolunay Tosun [4].
Pricing model
Subscription. The company says it was the number one subscription app publisher on iOS between June and August 2024, citing data.ai [2]. Retake Pro is a subscription; the price point and trial length are not on the page [5].
Funding
  • The company's own statement: "$0 external investment (bootstrapped)" [1]
  • Tracxn says "no funding rounds yet" but also lists a Cluster Ventures bridge investment in December 2024; a contradiction, unverified (secondary data) [7]

02

Growth timeline

  1. 2020

    Founded; first success with Ask AI

    [4]

  2. 2024-08

    "Number one subscription app publisher" on iOS (June–August; company claim citing data.ai)

    "#1 subscription app publisher and the most downloaded app publisher on iOS"

    [2]

  3. 2025

    Annual revenue past $300M; Retake $40M+ ARR, 35M+ downloads (job-listing text)

    "surpassing $300M in annual revenue"

    [3]

  4. 2025-10-11

    Retake $40M ARR entry (secondary data, no source given)

    [6]

  5. 2026

    $400M+ ARR, profitable, self-funded; 500M+ users, 356 employees (job-listing text)

    "$400M+ ARR, profitable, self-funded"

    [2]

  6. 2026-08-31

    584 employees (secondary data)

    [7]

03

Growth loop

  1. 1Paid ads on every network
  2. 2Download
  3. 3One-tap result
  4. 4Subscription revenue
  5. 5New app, store ranking
  6. Leak: churn: an unmeasured payback period

The fuel of the loop is advertising, the lock is LTV/CAC discipline. The company does not disclose it; the red arrow shows the invisible arithmetic between churn and payback period.

The drawing shows the shape of the loop; each node is explained in the list below. The red arrow marks value leaking out of the loop.

04

Mechanism

Acquisition channels
Paid user acquisition at scale. In the company's own words: "One of Europe's top ad spenders on every major network"; partners listed include Apple Ads, Meta, TikTok, Google Ads and Snap [1]. The exact opposite of the "zero paid" story at Higgsfield and Lovable. The second channel is the portfolio and store position: more than sixty apps and a "most downloaded publisher" ranking feed organic discovery; the studio features in Apple's "AI apps made in Türkiye" showcase [4].
Loop
Paid ads, download, trial and subscription, revenue, more ads and a new app, store ranking, organic downloads. One app per AI wave: Ask AI (chat), Retake (face editing), Learna (language), Wellture (health) [1]. The heart of the loop is LTV/CAC discipline; the company does not disclose it, not found.
Activation
Retake: upload photos, pick a profile, instant result [5]. Cleanup: deleting duplicate photos, claimed number one in its category for six years [1]. A visible one-tap result is the first second of the mobile subscription funnel.
Retention evidence
No disclosure. The profitability claim indirectly suggests payback is in line with ad spend; but churn is unknown. The Retake page lists 12M+ monthly active users and 1M downloads a month [5]; that ratio alone says nothing about retention. No retention evidence.
Role of pricing
Subscription; the company counts itself number one in subscription publishing [2]. Trial length and price point not found. The gap between dollar revenue and a lira cost base is the structural advantage that makes paid acquisition sustainable (opinion).
Distribution moves
A Barcelona office (2026), partnership logos from OpenAI, Google Cloud, NVIDIA, ByteDance and Anthropic, more than seventy original series under Cosmic Jam [1]. The portfolio is the distribution: every new app inherits the ad and store learning of the previous one (opinion).
Team
356 employees (job listing), more than 400 (website), 584 (Tracxn, August 2026) [2] [1] [7]. A Great Place to Work claim as first in Turkey and sixth in Europe in 2023 [2]. $400M ARR over roughly 400 people is about $1M per employee; that is arithmetic, not a company statement.

05

Real reading

The five questions of the Growth Claim Check, applied to this company's public claims.

  1. 01

    What was measured, and by whom?

    unclear

    Every figure is a company statement: website and job listings. The only third-party reference is a data.ai ranking, and that was not opened.

  2. 02

    Perception or outcome?

    yes

    Revenue and downloads are outcomes; but undated and inconsistent across texts: users from 200M to 600M, Retake downloads from 35M to 150M.

  3. 03

    Is there a stability or quality metric?

    unclear

    There is a "profitable" claim; no churn, LTV or payback period.

  4. 04

    Is there a counterfactual or cohort?

    no

    No counterfactual or cohort.

  5. 05

    Nominal or real?

    unclear

    Paid acquisition is heavy; without the ratio of ad spend to revenue, the "profitable" claim cannot be measured.

Verdict

Gaps remain

The largest scale claim from Turkey, the least independent evidence. The figures are probably directionally right, but none is dated or audited; no founder narrative was found.

Test your own claim with the same five questions: Growth Claim Check →

06

Shadow side

  • User, download and revenue figures change from text to text; there is no corporate communication, only job listings and the website [1] [2] [3].
  • Tracxn's Cluster Ventures bridge-investment line contradicts the "zero external investment" claim; the primary record was not opened [7].
  • The known risks of the mobile subscription category: single-feature waves, high churn, rising ad costs. Codeway's answer is the portfolio; but there are no per-app figures [1].
  • No founder interview or podcast was found; the answer to "how" is not in the company's own voice.

07

What it teaches a founder in Türkiye

This section is opinion; a reading, not a source.

  1. 01

    (opinion) Dollar revenue, lira costs. Codeway's real advantage is global subscription revenue on an Istanbul cost base; that gap is what makes paid acquisition sustainable. The strongest structural card of any consumer app built in Turkey.

  2. 02

    (opinion) A portfolio insures against a single app's churn. Lensa fell with one wave; Codeway ships an app for every wave. The version a small team can run: two or three products on the same infrastructure.

  3. 03

    (opinion) Paid acquisition is nothing to be ashamed of, it is something to measure. The "zero marketing" story is fashionable; Codeway grew on ads and says it is profitable. Test question: how many months is your payback, and who measures it?

  4. 04

    (opinion) Date your claims. The same company's $300M and $400M texts circulate at the same time; on your own site, put a date on every figure.

  5. 05

    (opinion) Mobile economics did not change with AI, but disciplined mobile economics still works. A counter-example to Higgsfield's "mobile is hard" thesis.

A question for you: remove this company's logo and drop the loop onto your own product. Which node stays empty?

08

Sources

Numbers are the references in the text. An 'opened' source was read by the researcher; 'secondary' ones are verified against their primary source before publication.

  1. [1]
    Codeway website

    Codeway · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    “600M+ worldwide users ... $0 external investment ... One of Europe's top ad spenders on every major network”

  2. [2]
    Director of Finance job listing (company text)

    Built In / Codeway · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    “$400M+ ARR, profitable, self-funded ... #1 subscription app publisher and the most downloaded app publisher on iOS between June and August 2024”

  3. [3]
    Lead Engineering Manager, AI Creativity Apps job listing (company text)

    Built In / Codeway · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    “surpassing $300M in annual revenue ... Retake $40M+ ARR, 35M+ downloads”

  4. [4]
    Awesome AI apps made in Türkiye (showcase story)

    Apple App Store (TR) · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    “founded in 2020 by Anıl Şimşek and Tolunay Tosun”

  5. [5]
    Retake website

    Retake (Codeway) · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    “12M+ monthly active users ... 1M monthly downloads”

  6. [6]
    Retake entry

    ARR Club (secondary, unsourced) · 2025-10-11 · opened

    Note: Retake $40M ARR

  7. [7]
    Codeway company profile

    Tracxn (secondary) · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    Note: 584 employees (2026-08-31); Cluster Ventures bridge investment (December 2024); Barcelona office

  8. [8]
    Codeway profile

    Lucidity Insights (secondary) · accessed 2026-10-05 · opened

    Note: general profile; no figures taken

09

Open questions

  • A founder interview or podcast (Webrazzi, Egirişim, LinkedIn) should be opened; the answer to "how" is needed in the company's own voice.
  • Does the Cluster Ventures bridge investment exist; is the "zero external investment" statement accurate.
  • The primary page of the data.ai 2024 publisher ranking.
  • The dates behind Retake's 35M versus 150M downloads, and behind the $300M and $400M claims.