How Did Kazakhstan's Venture Market Change in 2025?
Kazakhstan's venture market continued to develop in 2025. The country has already built its own ecosystem, which is attracting the attention of outside players. Funds have become more active in investing in startups, deal volumes keep growing, and in September the country got its first “unicorn” – Higgsfield AI, valued at over $1 billion.
For Digital Business, the Activat VC team spoke with experts from IT and finance, who explained how venture capital is transforming in our region and whether investment in Kazakhstani startups can be expected to grow in the future.
What is happening to the market?
Despite the generally difficult situation in the global economy, investment in startups remains high. According to the consulting firm Bain & Company, global venture funding reached $109 billion in the second quarter of 2025 alone.
Against these figures, Central Asia looks like a small market, but a steadily growing one. The latest available study (by RISE Research, EA Group, MA7 Ventures, BGlobal Ventures, KPMG and dealroom.co) covers 2024 and estimates the total value of venture deals at $95 million. That is 7% more than in 2023, and the market's average growth since 2018 has been 35%. Taken on its own, Kazakhstan accounted for 74% of total venture investment in Central Asia, or $71 million. According to experts, this growth trend has continued.
Experts note that the past year was marked by the dominance of AI solutions.
– The most attractive industries are anything related to AI. But it has to be artificial intelligence that significantly shapes the product's core functionality, not just a small feature added “for show,” says Meirzhan Yessimkhanov, Executive Director of Activat VC.
– In my view, AI-native products turned out to be the most attractive. Not yet another LLM, but applied tools: automating sales, customer support, scoring and internal corporate processes. Over this year, AI stopped being a “feature” and became infrastructure. I can see that the winners are the teams that build their business around it from day one, notes Bakht Niyazov, founder of Justart VC studio and shareholder of Most Holding.
– In terms of money and investor attention, it's AI-first, as we say, including applied AI across industries. HealthTech, MedTech, Enterprise Software and SaaS are the core of demand in Kazakhstan. But the leading vertical for AI applications is fintech. It remains the base, or anchor, sector for our region and for Kazakhstan in particular. We see activity in this market, says Askar Bilisbekov, CEO and board member of Qazaqstan Venture Group.
– The industries turned out to be the same ones that are relevant worldwide – both the external hype and the deals inside Kazakhstan show it. It's everything related to fintech. Things that can easily be sold to the current big players like Kaspi, Freedom and Halyk, which have launched a fintech race against each other. That is a real exit for a great many startups and a real working model, comments independent financial analyst Andrey Chebotarev.
– 2025 was the year of artificial intelligence. The greatest interest is in solutions based on GenAI, AI agents and AI data analytics. They are being applied everywhere from finance and medicine to the public sector and industry, adds Aidana Bergazdenova, CEO of the Astana Hub Ventures venture fund.
This trend may continue, given the sustained global interest in AI and the Kazakh government’s focus on bringing this technology into the economy. This could lead both to even more projects in this field and to an additional inflow of investment.
How is investor activity changing?
Meirzhan Yessimkhanov notes that the volume of venture investment in the region is increasing. There is also growing interest from international investors. For example, TassVision and Garderob, startups from the Activat VC portfolio, have raised investment from European investors.
Askar Bilisbekov, for his part, points out that the key shift is that activity by international investors is no longer quite exotic but a regular part of how our venture market works. The number of active investors in the Kazakhstani ecosystem keeps growing steadily. More than 60 funds, investment companies and super angels operate in the market. Among the most active are MOST Ventures, EA Ventures, MA7 Ventures, Activat VC, Big Sky Capital and others.
At the same time, the approach to their work is itself transforming. For example, Activat VC, founded in 2014, started out as a startup studio with 6 projects of its own. Today the company follows a philosophy in which early-stage investment in startups is combined with mentorship, analytics, community building and opening up access to international markets for entrepreneurs.
2025 confirmed that this strategy was the right choice. There were more deals as the community grew and new partnerships were formed. Two communities have now formed around the fund: Activat Startup (370+ founders) and Activat Invest, a club of business angels and investors. The company also works with the funds Sturgeon, Domino, UzVC, Sabah, Pasha and others.
Overall, the very culture of venture investing is changing in the region, with the emphasis on building sustainable, promising products rather than on hype and loud statements.
Is there potential for international expansion?
The transformation under way in the ecosystem is changing the approach to investing. Growing activity among local players on the one hand, and increasing attention to Kazakhstani startups from abroad on the other, will continue to support the market's development. And the market, incidentally, consistently shows double-digit average annual growth.
And what is happening with Kazakhstani startups themselves? Bakht Niyazov says that some teams are already ready to enter international markets.
– What matters more, though, is that the region's potential for international growth is very large. I see it rather as a serious upside over the next 2-3 years. More specifically, Kazakhstani teams today are, on average, better prepared. They have more experience, a more global mindset and a better understanding of how to work with international markets. Many of them are already quite active in the US, Niyazov believes.
Andrey Chebotarev holds a similar view:
– In my opinion, many (startup teams) who really want international expansion have realized that the old model of “I'll grow something in Kazakhstan and then go global” doesn't work. So the model where you go straight to international markets, and in essence aren't even a Kazakhstani startup, is perfectly normal. How ready our people are for it in terms of skills is a very good question. But it will be answered by the startup founders themselves, who will look for ways and solutions.
– In general, startups that have raised seed rounds and are approaching Series A are ready to scale and look no worse than their peers from other countries. The main thing is to build a solid structure here so that their “home base is secure,” and to find the right markets to scale into, adds Meirzhan Yessimkhanov.
– Readiness to enter international markets is noticeably higher than 2-3 years ago. We see more and more teams building products with an international focus from the start, using global accelerators and programs while keeping a strong team in the region. There are striking examples in Cerebra AI and Higgsfield AI – these teams are setting good momentum in our country and the region. But it is important to remember that the market is still small, and this forces strong projects to look for larger markets and capital outside the region. Still, I think that over the next 3-5 years, maybe sooner, we will try to close this gap. Funds focused on later stages will appear, and we are working hard on that, Askar Bilisbekov is convinced.
– 2025 showed that entering developed markets remains a serious challenge for startups from the region – both early-stage and mature ones. The difficulty lies in fierce competition, the need to adapt the product to local specifics, and limited access to capital and partnerships. Support through international hubs such as Silkroad Innovation in Silicon Valley, Khan Tengri Innovation in Shanghai and Tumar Innovation in Dubai makes this path more realistic, reflects Aidana Bergazdenova.
What comes next?
At the current stage of the market's development, experts say, it is important to expand the ecosystem in every direction. This is not only about increasing investment volumes but also about covering more funding rounds, so that Kazakhstani startups have access to more than just the early stages.
Bakht Niyazov notes in this regard that a more balanced funding structure across stages should accelerate the development of the venture market. In his view, one of the key constraints today is the shortage of capital in later rounds.
– In the countries of the region, and this is especially visible in Uzbekistan, many startups have emerged and early-stage funds are developing quite actively. But then a gap appears: projects grow, but there is simply no one to pick them up at the next stage. For a long time the situation in Kazakhstan was similar, he says.
But the initiative to create funds of funds in Kazakhstan could change the situation. It changes not only access to capital but also the overall perception of the market, above all among startup founders. It will become possible to build a long growth trajectory rather than view the Kazakhstani ecosystem as a “temporary launchpad.”
It is also important to bring more and more private entrepreneurs into the venture market, so that not only the number of investors grows but also their expertise. This reduces the number of toxic decisions while improving the quality of capital, which makes the market more resilient. Organizations such as Qazaqstan Venture Group and Alem Ventures Fund are becoming important players.
Meirzhan Yessimkhanov adds that the development of the venture industry could be accelerated by high-quality higher education and by positive news about local “unicorns,” exits and strong returns for investors. The first will attract more founders, and the second – potential investors and business angels.
– There is still a belief in society that you can only get investment to develop your project through connections, but that is not true. We need to fight these stereotypes, stresses the Executive Director of Activat VC.
Aidana Bergazdenova, for her part, believes that the focus should be on the volume of capital available in the ecosystem – the development of the venture market depends on it directly. But infrastructure is also needed in the form of acceleration programs and initiatives for entering new markets. It is precisely the combination of accessible funding and high-quality support programs that creates the greatest positive effect for accelerating the ecosystem's growth.
