Central Asian startup ecosystem: July highlights & news

Kazakhstani company Gen2B has developed the first language model for Armenia. The model, called HyGPT, is now available for download on the Hugging Face platform. It can be used in educational projects, digital products, public services, and business applications.

Mobile game Grand Mobile has raised $750,000 in funding from Astana Hub Ventures. Developed by Kazakhstani game studio Grand Games, Grand Mobile is an open-world online mobile game.

Uzbekistan is building an AI cluster based on NVIDIA technologies. Initially, it will focus on integrating AI into healthcare. Simultaneously, work is underway to create a major computing center.

Uzbek startup TASS Vision has raised €1.3 million in investment. The company develops AI-powered cameras that help retailers track customer movement in stores and evaluate the effectiveness of product displays and marketing strategies. Czech fund Purple Ventures became the first Central European investor to back a startup from Uzbekistan.

FinTech startup Finflow has secured $500,000 in funding from investors in the U.S. and Kazakhstan. Finflow is developing an AI-powered CFO assistant for SMEs, offering every entrepreneur a personal financial assistant.

Kazakhstani startup CYBERPACK.AI raised $300,000 in angel investment at the Pre-Seed stage, with a valuation of $2 million. The company combines a digital platform with physical STEAM kits that help students aged 7–18 create science projects, prepare for competitions, and develop engineering thinking and 21st-century skills.

Timur Turlov has launched Freedom Ventures Ltd. with an authorized capital of 5 billion tenge. The company was established through the brokerage firm Freedom Kazakhstan Ltd. Olga Baskakova has been appointed CEO of this new asset of Timur Turlov.

Halyk Bank is acquiring a stake in Click for $176.4 million. Click, Uzbekistan’s leading payment provider, and Halyk Bank, the largest financial group in Central Asia, announced a strategic partnership — the largest private sector deal in Uzbekistan’s history.

Khan Tengri Innovation Hub has opened in Shanghai to support startups from Central Eurasia. The launch took place during the WAIC 2025, the largest artificial intelligence and innovation forum in Asia.

HRTech startup Verifix raised $400,000 in funding. The startup addresses a $4 billion efficiency loss in the region by offering companies tools to optimize HR processes, improve discipline, and reduce costs.

Tajikistan has unveiled its first national language model. The neural network, developed by researchers at zehnlab.ai, is adapted to Tajik speech and its various dialects. The launch of SoroLLM marks a major milestone in the country’s digital transformation and highlights the importance of developing local technologies.