KDA finalists received 50 thousand dollars of investment

Today, Astana Hub hosted the awards ceremony for the finalists of the Kazakhstan Digital Accelerator (KDA), a world-class acceleration program initiated by the Baiterek holding and the Singapore-based Quest Ventures Foundation.

KDA was launched in July of this year by a subsidiary of the Holding - QazTech Ventures JSC and the Quest Ventures fund. In total, about 200 applications from Kazakhstani and international startups were received for participation in the program.

The finalists of the program are founders of startups that received investments of $ 50,000 each. In addition, within 4 months, the participants of the first KDA stream will be able to study with the best international mentors and professionals with many years of experience, receive advice, and also present their projects to investors from Southeast Asia to attract additional investment.

- We have put forward the following requirements for startups: to have a working product or service, a repeatable and scalable business model in the digital economy, to be focused on large markets. We initially decided that Kazakhstani startups should compete globally and enter foreign countries. And we are systematically pushing them to this, - noted the managing director of the Baiterek holding Adil Nurgozhin.

It should be noted that young people have put forward really useful products that can adequately represent Kazakhstan in the foreign market. According to the results of the competitive selection, teams in the following industries will take part in the first KDA stream: Edtech - 3 teams (Aero, Okoo, Qlang); Agrotech - 1 team (Egistic); MedTech and Health Tech - 2 teams (Cerebra, 1Fit); Consumer digital & retail - 3 teams (Campeat, Retail Analytica, ApartX); Payments - 1 project (Smart Gas).

- I would like to congratulate all participants in the first stream of the Kazakhstan Digital Accelerator program. We hope that the knowledge and financial support they receive will help startups to get on the right course of building a business model, - explained the acting chairman of the board of "QazTech Ventures" Diaz Beksoltan.

It should be noted that the organizers intend to continue the KDA program. The Singapore partner is investing $ 2 million in it over three years.

- On average, we expect that we will have several acceleration programs with 10 companies each. In October, we will announce the second stream, which will take place next year. But we will start the selection in advance. I hope we see a lot more interesting new startups, - noted the representative of Quest Ventures in Kazakhstan Anuar Seifullin.

Baiterek Holding successfully implements one of its strategic goals - the development of technological and venture entrepreneurship through its subsidiary - QazTech Ventures JSC. Today QazTech Ventures operates as a fund of funds. In 2018, the holding initiated the adoption of amendments to the draft law on venture financing.

Thanks to this, a large-scale work has been done - the giants of this sphere have been attracted to Kazakhstan. Now the Baiterek holding is working with the two largest investment venture funds of the USA and Singapore, creating joint venture funds, including for the promotion of Kazakhstani startups.