The third wave of the StartUp Kazakhstan program has started

On May 21, Tech Garden hosted the official opening of the third set of the StartUp Kazakhstan international acceleration program

Traditionally, at the beginning of the program, the teams that have passed the selection gather in Almaty to get acquainted with the organizers, among themselves and talk about their projects. Also, at the start, the guys receive advice on the rules and conditions of acceleration in order to achieve the maximum result at the finish line for launching their startup on the market.

Applications for the third wave of the StartUp Kazakhstan acceleration program were accepted in September-December 2018. About 500 applications were received from ten countries. This time the geography of the project covered Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Poland and Norway. The teams presented new solutions in such industries as e-commerce, education, financial technology, Industry 4.0, smart city, telecommunications. Experts have selected 40 best offers.

“There are a lot of national startup programs in the Silk Road region. But Kazakhstan is one of the first countries to offer an International Program specifically to attract startups to Kazakhstan. Startups come here because Kazakhstan is a stable platform, both politically and in terms of doing business. We have developed serious industries, such as the mining and metallurgical complex, the oil and gas sector, which are the drivers of the economy. But added value is of interest to everyone today, and we hope that it is the startups that will offer improvements for traditional industries that will allow them to reach the growth that the First President of Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke about, about which the head of state Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke, General Director of ACF Tech Garden Sanzhar Kettebekov.

The international acceleration program StartUp Kazakhstan is implemented by ACF Tech Garden under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan and is aimed at creating a critical mass of high-tech companies in the small and medium-sized business market. An international venture fund Tech Garden Ventures was created to finance and attract investments in startups.

“Acceleration begins with diagnostics of each startup, after which an individual plan for its development and a targeted educational program are drawn up, which lasts 3 months. Unlike business accelerators, we have a separate component for “pumping” the technological part of a startup product. Each team is assigned a coach who sets goals and monitors progress on a daily basis, “says Sanzhar Kettebekov.

Program participants receive funding — up to 31 thousand US dollars. All startups sign an investment agreement and open an LLP in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The money is transferred to the accounts of these LLPs, and, according to the terms of the agreement, the start-up companies spend the received investments only on the development of their product in Kazakhstan.

These are the initial investments that create a venture capital story for a startup. Both during and after acceleration, Tech Garden holds meetings with venture capitalists and the corporate sector in order to attract more serious investments to mature startups.

The first and second waves of the StartUp Kazakhstan program took place in 2018. More than 2 thousand startups from Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Poland, and the USA have applied for participation in it. As a result of a careful expert selection, 69 startups (30 from Kazakhstan and 39 from the CIS countries) underwent acceleration. In 2018, startups created 250 jobs. All projects showed results, some gave an increase of 200-300%.

“As a result of two stages, we have already accelerated and financed 69 startups. Today these are already quite serious companies, they have grown in just a few months. They have already earned 2.2 billion tenge during the program period. We estimate their total portfolio at around $ 70 million. Some companies have reached the milestone when they are worth more than $ 10 million. There are companies that, with ideas developed here, went to Singapore, Malaysia, now they are entering the US markets, European markets, “said Sanzhar Kettebekov.

Separately, it is worth noting 23 startups that have created a product for the industrial sector. These are projects in the field of Industry 4.0, New Materials, Additive Engineering and Smart Infrastructure, which are already cooperating with such enterprises as KazMunayGas, KEGOC, Tengizchevroil, Kamaz and other industrial giants. And also startups working with the financial sector.

Among the most promising startups, for example, is Koktem 2. This is the first Kazakhstani software package that takes environmental design and monitoring processes to a new level. A modern, well-thought-out interface was created on the principle of a single window, which significantly reduces the time of work and automates the design and monitoring process. This is an easy transition from proactive data collection and manual filling of forms to automatic generation of reports and projects completely ready for delivery. Today, this startup company works with the Kazakhstan Association of Natural Resource Users (KAPUR), RGP Gosexpertiza, Intellisense-Lab LLP, Transtelecom JSC, Kazakhstan Environmental Design Center LLP. The startup already has large clients and partners such as ERG and AA Engineering Group. Negotiations are underway with a number of other nature users.

Another high-tech development is also conquering the Kazakhstani market. The startup Verigram has created a service that uses computer vision technology to analyze images. Verigram can find and compare faces, recognize text and produce results in real time. Artificial intelligence and neural networks create trainable models that are constantly improving and expanding their capabilities in the field of face and text recognition. This gives the business the ability to identify customers through mobile applications and personal computers online. The service can be easily integrated into ready-made applications. The convenience and, most importantly, the accuracy of data recording has already been appreciated by such companies as Beeline, Insurance Agents Alliance, Salem Insurance, Nomad Insurance, Da24 LLP, Cisco Kazakhstan, Mykhat. Now the team is testing its solutions in pilot mode for such a financial giant as Sberbank.

It is worth noting the successful marketplace AIDA Service, which directly connected domestic manufacturers of building materials and developers, as well as individuals who are engaged in the construction or renovation of their own homes. This has reduced the operating costs of intermediaries. The average savings on the purchase of building materials was 15%. Consequently, the cost of finished square meters also decreases. The entire document flow is automatically generated within the system, which is created according to the principle of transparency, which neutralizes corruption. The convenience and benefits of the marketplace have already been appreciated by a number of large construction corporations and thousands of private clients who buy construction materials online without overpaying and wasting time on trips to construction markets.

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