"There are fewer startups in the region, but they have become higher quality," — Aslan Sultanov on how the venture market has changed.

Aslan Sultanov, city — Astana, managing partner of the venture company White Hill Capital, Instagram

How 2025 began

2025 has been active for us — the company is growing and developing. As I mentioned earlier, the venture industry has low conversion rates. To find one or two good projects, you need to review dozens, if not hundreds.

Our analysts have already developed strong skills: the more projects they see, the faster they can analyze, classify, and identify interesting ones. The last time we counted, our data room contained over 1,700 projects. And this does not include those filtered out during initial conversations and events.

Our selection process works like this: if a project is too early-stage, we advise going through an accelerator, such as Astana Hub. Then, you can attract funding from business angels. When the company matures and fits our investment mandate, we are ready to consider it for investment.

This year, we have already made about nine investments: some are new, and some are follow-on, meaning supporting companies in subsequent rounds. This is important as it signals to other investors that early backers have confidence. In total, we invested around $1.5–2 million.

By mandate, we are sector-agnostic and look at various directions, but over time it became clear that FinTech, in the broadest sense, is closest to us. Our team includes many former bankers, so this segment is most familiar to us. This includes PropTech, AI-scoring, and other technologies.

We understand that it is impossible to be an expert in everything. For example, MedTech is interesting but requires long approval processes and carries risks — many solutions may quickly become free due to technological advancements. The same applies to other industries.

FinTech, however, is particularly promising in Kazakhstan: major banks like Kaspi and Freedom are demonstrating excellent cases. Therefore, we decided to focus specifically on this industry and build expertise here.

Geography and trends

Currently, we operate in six markets: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, more than 70% of our projects remain Kazakhstani. Thanks to the MAH jurisdiction, many startups register subsidiaries here, and formally, they also become Kazakhstani. We have more than 70 such companies.

Among international cases, Saudi Arabia stands out. We have two projects there. The first is an educational startup, Ayla, which uses artificial intelligence for schools. We helped it expand into Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. The second is Expense, a promising FinTech project. Last month, we invested in it and brought it to the region. The company is now registering an office in Kazakhstan, hiring people in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.

Initially, we stated that we would help Kazakhstani projects expand to neighboring markets — Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. But we are also moving in the opposite direction: helping foreign projects enter our markets. Although our markets are smaller in volume, each new market adds capitalization for both the projects and us as investors.

There are fewer startups in the region, but they have become higher quality. In addition to projects we have already invested in, we have a list of 30–40 companies that we constantly monitor. Among them are mature and strong ones. A good pipeline comes from accelerators, such as Google for Startups and Astana Hub. Almost half of our portfolio consists of graduates from these programs.

Currently, more than half of our efforts are directed toward supporting our existing portfolio. We actively work with current companies: helping them develop and attract subsequent rounds of investment.

Among key trends, we can highlight the integration of artificial intelligence. We see that AI solutions are appearing in almost all projects, even if only in trial versions. The trend is obvious.

Another important trend is early entry into foreign markets. Projects that began scaling outside Kazakhstan at an early stage show better results. Today, Uzbekistan is actively developing and is open to Kazakhstani startups; there, too, investments are being made in our projects. Azerbaijan is also showing growth: both the state and private structures are investing there. Therefore, many Kazakhstani startups are already entering Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan from the very beginning. This is an excellent first step for testing the business model and gaining experience in entering new markets.

Strategy and portfolio

Our investment strategy remains the same, but we have already reached a new stage. We primarily look at FinTech and everything related to this sphere. Currently, we are focusing on exiting projects and trying to discuss this with our portfolio startups: how the business is developing and where they see potential exits.

One of the reasons we focused on FinTech is that the exit question is particularly acute in this industry. Banks — both Kazakhstani, Uzbek, and Azerbaijani — are actively adopting innovations, ready to launch pilot projects with startups, and sometimes even acquire them. Therefore, we have started working closely with banks: each of them is currently forming its own ecosystem. Especially those banks that are catching up with leaders often consider collaborations and acquisitions. As a result, our main focus is FinTech and working with second-tier banks.

Regarding the stage of projects, our portfolio mainly consists of startups at the Seed and Late Seed stages, meaning more mature ones. Very early-stage, Pre-Seed projects have become fewer — many other investors operate there. We have focused on the segment where we can bring more added value to the ecosystem.

About the future

The main projects that currently stand out:

— Azizjon Azimi from zipl.ai. He has actively moved towards artificial intelligence, building an ecosystem, and became the first to expand to more than 20 markets. 

— Zhanadil Taldybayev from CodiPlay is developing well in the MENA region.

— Among new portfolio additions — Daulet Batyrbek from Prometei. This is an e-com and FinTech startup that we took on and are actively developing. It is now entering the Uzbek market, raising a round, and we are helping to close it.

— A strong female-led FinTech startup, Porte Tech by Aidana. We saw how she reached the final in Takadam and is actively developing. It is indeed a really cool project.

— epsilon3.ai, Najima’s project, is also interesting. It is in the AI sector and already has applied cases with energy and telecom companies.

I look positively at new founders. It is important for us to have a constant flow of projects. The more there are, the higher the chance of finding interesting ones. Overall, trends in the industry are moderately positive. Everyone always wants more liquidity and money, but the ministry is implementing cool initiatives. A large fund supports local management companies, including us.

Three years ago, the industry was niche: everyone had heard of it, but few were doing it. Now, banks and telecom companies are paying attention, and the head of state supports the industry. This is a good trend, and it will strengthen.

The main risks are associated with conflicts in the region. During such periods, investors hold back funding. It is important to have good economic and political indicators. Our industry is still small, in the early stages, and in some ways even less susceptible to risks.

Promising technologies for the next 6–12 months are AI agents. We ourselves, as a fund, are looking at such solutions. For example, KLI has AI agents for venture funds: they partially replace analysts and can evaluate projects. We are keeping an eye on similar ones. The trend is automation, speeding up processes, and rapid information processing. Whoever does this better will be successful.

To founders seeking investment, I advise participating in accelerators. Three years ago, there were fewer of them; now there are strong programs. It is worth applying to innovation hubs in the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai. In January, we held the first accelerator in Saudi Arabia, with 10 teams arriving: some succeeded, some did not, but some stayed. We are launching the second one in Dubai jointly with DFC Innovation Hub — it is closer to FinTech, AI, and PropTech. You need to apply, participate, enter new markets, and meet with funds and investors.

Recently, we summarized the results of our fund. Over three years, our MOIC amounted to 2.4. Those who invested $100,000 today have about $240,000. This is a 240% growth. If we look at the average across the market and among managers on emerging markets, we are among the best. This is a cool result for us and for the industry as a whole.

Currently, we plan to close the current fund and are thinking about a second, larger one. It will allow us to enter more mature projects and not be limited to the Tumar Venture Fund stage.