# Volkan Gurel

> Volkan Gurel is the co-founder and CEO of Layer, an AI operating system for creative teams in gaming and entertainment. An MIT-trained engineer who has built distributed systems and machine learning pipelines at Hunch, eBay, Airware, and Coinbase, he holds four UAV patents from his drone-engineering years. In 2023 he co-founded Layer with Burcu Hakguder to let game studios generate performance-ready images, video, 3D, and audio without scaling headcount or outsourcing. The company is backed by a board of gaming heavyweights including King co-founder Riccardo Zacconi, and serves studios like Zynga, King, and Peak Games.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at Layer
- **Organizations:** Layer (layer.ai), Coinbase, Airware, eBay, Hunch
- **Nationality:** Turkish / American
- **Education:** B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (dual degree), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Layer, an AI creative-automation platform used by 10,000+ artists and 300+ entertainment brands., Named inventor on four UAV (drone) patents issued 2016-2017 for flight planning, sensor activation and line-of-sight control., Built and scaled machine learning and distributed systems at Hunch, eBay, Airware and Coinbase.

## Career timeline

- **2005-2009** — Studies Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.
- **2009-2011** — Early engineer at Hunch, a machine-learning recommendation startup (acquired by eBay in 2011).
- **2011** — Joins eBay following its acquisition of Hunch, working on software and data systems.
- **2016-2017** — Directs engineering at drone company Airware; named on four UAV patents covering flight planning, sensor activation and visual line-of-sight control.
- **2018-2022** — Engineering management at Coinbase.
- **2023** — Co-founds Layer with Burcu Hakguder; raises a ~$1.8M seed round in November.
- **2025** — Layer expands funding (Seed, ~$6.5M raised May 2025; ~$18.3M total) and grows to 300+ entertainment brands and 10,000+ users.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Layer, an AI creative-automation platform used by 10,000+ artists and 300+ entertainment brands.
- Named inventor on four UAV (drone) patents issued 2016-2017 for flight planning, sensor activation and line-of-sight control.
- Built and scaled machine learning and distributed systems at Hunch, eBay, Airware and Coinbase.
- Assembled a board of gaming founders including Riccardo Zacconi (King), Mehmet Ecevit (Gram Games) and Akin Babayigit (Peak Games).
- Raised roughly $18.3M in venture funding for Layer.

## Latest updates

- **2025-05** — Layer raised additional seed funding (~$6.5M), pushing total funding to roughly $18.3M.
- **2025** — Layer positions itself as 'The AI Operating System for Creative Teams' and ships agentic 'Layer Workflows', integrating with Claude and tools like Photoshop, Blender and Unity.

## Links

- Website: https://layer.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/volkangurel
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/layer_ai
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@layer_ai
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.gurel/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/layerai/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/volkan-gurel
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-20