Central Asian Startup Ecosystem: Weekly Insights & News, August 4–9

For investors, founders, and anyone interested in the Central Asian startup scene — here is a quick look at the top news from this week. We have gathered the key updates, from new launches to funding deals and industry moves across the region.

Murat Alikhanov steps down as CEO of 1Fit but will remain a shareholder and continue contributing to the company’s strategic development. He plans to focus on advising tech companies and startup founders.

Kazakhstan and Turkey strengthen cooperation in digital technologies, signing an agreement in ICT, AI, space, cybersecurity, and e-government.

Uzum, Uzbekistan’s leading digital ecosystem, raised around $70 million from Chinese tech giant Tencent and international investment fund VR Capital, with participation from FinSight Ventures — lead investor of the first round completed in March 2024.

Kazakhstan’s FinTech startup Beksar receives a $100 000 grant from the global Mastercard Strive initiative. Beksar is the only project from Kazakhstan in the program, which aims to expand financial inclusion for SMEs worldwide.

Access to AlemLLM, a Kazakh-language large language model, is now open to startups, universities, companies, and global platforms, enabling free use for product development, solution testing, and service integration.