Beyne.ai — a startup that helps people stay safe and grow their business

We met with the founder and CEO of the startup @beyneai — Seilbek Myktybekov, who shared how Beyne.ai helps people, discussed his experience participating in accelerators, and outlined plans for the startup’s future development.

Seilbek Myktybekov, 35 years old, city — Astana, founder of the startup Beyne.ai, @seilbek_myktybekov

About myself

I started my career as a developer. Later, I worked as a CTO, managed teams, and built large-scale projects.

I served as a technical director for about eight years, while simultaneously assisting with development: integrating business analytics and solving other tasks.

About founding the startup

In 2021, we created a prototype of a facial recognition technology and submitted an application to the Almaty Investment Forum competition. We emerged as the best among 113 startups. Since then, we have been developing in this direction. We learned more about how startups operate and how the venture capital system works. Over time, we developed an API and began selling it.

In the future, we plan to integrate our product with others. We are already negotiating pilot projects. Our project is refined and ready for implementation in large-scale systems.

The goal of creating the startup was to move away from Ashyq and create a system for allowing people entry via Face ID. We identified a need for video analytics and built a product using this technology. Our project allows us to extract objects and people’s faces from video streams. This enables analysis of whether a person has access to a building or not.

Target audience

Our clients are integrators, IT companies, including Sergek. There are many large organizations that need our technology to build their own products.

Mobile operators often approach us, seeking various systems such as Face ID and customer counting systems.

Our client base is diverse. Currently, we sometimes lack the personnel to serve everyone, so we occasionally have to decline requests.

Beyne.ai helps businesses by improving time management and their statistics. The project also increases security levels — in schools and other buildings where access restrictions apply.

Our startup can be useful in various fields, from security to marketing. We make people’s lives easier, as there is no longer a need for them to monitor hundreds of video cameras.

About the team

We are still building our team. There are many tasks and clients. We feel a slight shortage of staff, so we are focused on increasing the number of employees.

We are also considering how to develop our product in the business sector.

Accelerators, funding

Last year, we participated in top-tier accelerators:

1. Plug and Play
2. Google for Startups
3. Hero Training in Silicon Valley.

Through these programs, we learned everything necessary. Now, we only need to focus on developing our startup.

We received investments from Astana Hub and My Ventures, but primarily, we generate our own revenue.

Challenges

Our team has extensive experience in development. We have previously built complex systems, so there are no technical issues.

The challenges lie in team building. Additionally, business-related tasks pose difficulties. I previously lacked business experience, so I have had to learn many things from scratch, such as legal and accounting matters. There is no one to advise me, so I have to figure it out myself. Even opening a limited liability company (LLC) takes a lot of time because I handle it independently.

We are working on increasing our revenue. To achieve this, we are hiring additional staff who can complete tasks faster than before.

Achievements

The formation of our startup took place in 2022. It was a difficult time when we launched the project into the market with almost no support.

The biggest achievement is that we fully defined our direction and understood how we would operate.

Another achievement is participating in top-tier accelerators. We had investors from the very beginning, but at that time, I did not fully understand what Beyne.ai would do, so I declined offers. However, by the end of last year, we consciously accepted investments from Astana Hub.

We were also selected as one of the top 15 startups for a trip to Silicon Valley.

Plans for 2023-2024

We will continue developing in Kazakhstan. This is an important market for us because it is where we refine our product and receive feedback. We understand the local mentality, as we live here.

I am considering scaling internationally, to neighboring markets and the United States. The American market is large, and we would like to begin our expansion there.