11 startups from Central Asia that attracted investments in March 2026

Kazakhstan

Nace.AI
AI startup Nace.AI, founded by individuals of Kazakh origin, has raised $21.5 million in investment from international investors, led by General Catalyst. The raised funds will be directed toward expanding the team, developing infrastructure, and working with data to scale the product for the corporate segment.

Laminar
Startup Laminar, a developer of open-source tools for analyzing AI agent behavior, has raised $3 million in a round led by Atlantic, with participation from Y Combinator and AAL VC. The funds are planned to be used for expanding tracing infrastructure, improving debugging tools, and strengthening the engineering team.

Jet Finance
FinTech company Jet Finance has raised $20 million in debt financing from the American fund Almavest to develop auto lending in Kazakhstan. The funds will be used to expand services, strengthen market position, and increase the availability of financial products for small businesses and private clients.

Gro.now, Cortex AI, AR San, Qalam AI
At the finale of the national startup battle Digital Qazaqstan Battle, held as part of the Digital Qazaqstan 2026 forum in Shymkent, the country's best technology startups competed for a prize fund of 19,000,000 tenge.

The grand prize of 10,000,000 tenge went to Gro.now, a platform for marketing research and market analytics.

The second place, worth 5,000,000 tenge, was won by Cortex AI, an AI system for clinical decision support that predicts the risk of kidney transplant rejection.

The third place, worth 3,000,000 tenge, was awarded to AR Sana, a Health-tech platform for children's speech development that creates a unified gaming ecosystem for parents, children, and speech therapists.

Additionally, the audience chose a startup that received the Audience Choice Award of 1,000,000 tenge: Qalam AI, a smart pen that remembers everything: you write on paper, the AI recognizes the text, analyzes it, and organizes the notes in a mobile app.

Uzbekistan

Smartcast
IT startup Smartcast has raised $100,000 in investment from the venture fund IT Park Ventures to develop its digital infrastructure in the media and advertising sector. The funds will be directed toward strengthening the product and expanding the platform's capabilities in advertising and media technologies.

Deepen
Uzbek startup Deepen, which is building an ecosystem for automating fitness clubs and wellness services based on an ERP platform, has raised $300,000 in angel financing in a bridge round at a valuation of approximately $6 million. The funds will be used to improve the product's AI features and expand into international markets.

Uzum
The digital ecosystem Uzum has raised over $130 million in investment from sovereign investors of the Sultanate of Oman and leading international partners. The raised funds will go toward accelerating the development of e-commerce, digital banking, payments, and credit services across the country.

Tajikistan

zypl.ai
In March 2026, FinTech startup zypl.ai, developing AI solutions for the financial sector, raised two rounds of investment: $5.5 million in a strategic bridge round at a valuation of $80 million from Carbide Ventures, and $2 million in strategic investment from Hofiz Shahidi. The funds will be directed toward expansion into key markets, development of the zGAN platform, and implementation of AI technologies in banking products.