MOST Ventures graduate startup Qtap has secured investment from Margulan Seysembay

The startup Qtap, a graduate of the MOST Investment Readiness Accelerator, raised $275,000 in pre-seed funding at a company valuation of $3 million. UMAY Angels Club joined the round, with the deal still in the process of being structured.

With all commitments accounted for, the total investment amount is expected to exceed $300,000. A significant event in this round was the participation of well-known Kazakh entrepreneur and investor, Margulan Seissembai. This is his first investment in the MOST ecosystem. In addition to him, business angel Bakht Niyazov and the MOST Ventures fund participated in the syndicate.

Margulan Seissembai, @margulan_seissembai
When I invest in a project, my goal is not what I can earn from it; I look at how it will change the world—for better or worse. This service helps entrepreneurs, bloggers, and creators showcase the results of their work anywhere in the world. In this case, I relied on the expertise of my partner Bakht Niyazov and MOST Ventures, who offered me a deal that aligns with my values, so I decided to invest in the Qtap startup and am very pleased to be part of this event.

Qtap is a platform that functions as a social network, website builder, and online payment system within a single ecosystem. The service allows users to gather all the most important information in one place, which is convenient for regular users, small and medium-sized business (SMB) representatives, and large brands alike: links to social media, educational materials, payment systems, and much more.

The founder and CEO of the startup is 29-year-old entrepreneur Madat Karimov, who identified a market pain point while trying to promote his small offline businesses online—a photo studio and an IT studio. Existing business card page creation services had very limited functionality and did not meet all user needs. Karimov and three co-founders developed the idea for a multi-link platform, which has since evolved into a more comprehensive platform combining a social network, a decentralized marketplace, and fintech.

Madat Karimov, Founder and CEO of the startup
Qtap is pronounced "Kitap." We are creating a book whose pages tell you more about yourself than you can imagine. In February 2021, the idea was born—a simple boxed solution where you create a profile and, through a subscription, gain access to all tools for e-commerce, both for personal use and for large brands. You can promote your services, advertise your business, publish price lists and event announcements, sell products, monetize content, create app aggregators, and share links to photos and videos. Qtap does not just allow you to gather all the most important information in one place; it is a whole ecosystem combining a website builder, a social network, online payments, and much more.

Qtap launched in April 2023, and in less than two months, without spending on advertising, it attracted 20,000 users. Among them are regular users, celebrities, the country's largest banks, and other companies. Rapid growth was made possible by the high value of the product for users and the interest of influencers in the platform.

Bakht Niyazov, investor and mentor of the startup
This project has great potential for scaling not only in Kazakhstan but also beyond its borders. The uniqueness of the service lies in the fact that it is a product at the intersection of Web 3.0, meaning it operates in the format of the next generation of the internet, where every marketplace or merchant strives for decentralization, while simultaneously being a SaaS platform providing access to marketing analytics.

An important milestone in the startup's development was its participation in the flagship program of the MOST venture fund for preparing startups for investment. Nearly 50% of the fund's portfolio consists of accelerator graduates.

Alim Khamitov, Managing Partner of MOST Ventures, @mostventures
It is a significant event for us when a graduate of our Investment Readiness Accelerator (IRA) program organically transitions into the category of portfolio startups. This means that the startup acquired knowledge, applied it, grew, and, seeing its growth potential, the fund did not miss the opportunity to invest in it.

We give many startups the opportunity to become our partners on various projects. Qtap needed track record, so when we launched ticket sales for the annual CEVF venture forum for investors and startups, Madat integrated payment processing for direct sales on our pages. At that time, we were able to personally assess the convenience and efficiency of his product.

The startup plans to invest the raised funds in expanding the team, scaling operations, and marketing.