News from the ecosystem
Funding, product launches, policy & people moves — curated daily.
NavAI raises $80K from Yoshlar Ventures to scale its AI voice platform for customer service
NavAI, an Uzbekistan-based startup that automates customer calls with AI, has raised $80,000 from Yoshlar Ventures. The round will fund improvements to the company's speech and language models, engineering team growth, and regional sales expansion. The startup builds AI voice agents that handle inbound and outbound calls in Uzbek and Russian, integrate with CRM systems, and escalate to live operators when needed. The platform runs 24/7 and targets a problem that costs businesses across the region significant revenue: missed calls, busy lines, and customers who never get through. NavAI has processed more than 51,000 calls to date. Nearly 60% were resolved fully by AI, without any human operator involvement. The platform has also been deployed in the public sector." Every missed call is a lost customer — or someone who couldn't reach the service they needed. We're proving that AI can close that gap in our own languages, at scale," said Sardor Davlatov, CEO and co-founder. "This investment lets us move faster — improving our models, growing the team, and bringing NavAI to more organizations across the region." The new round is not the company's first outside capital. NavAI previously raised $20,000 from Sarmo Ventures in August 2025 and won the President Tech Award, which came with a $50,000 prize. The startup also recently took first place at the GSMA Startup Pitch Competition Day Uzbekistan at M360 Eurasia, earning an exhibition spot at 4YFN during MWC Barcelona 2027. NavAI was founded by Sardor Davlatov and Kilichbek Haydarov, who serves as Chief AI Officer. The team builds its speech, language, and telephony stack natively for Central Asian markets. More at navai.uz
TheCarGo raises $110K from Yoshlar Ventures and a U.S. angel to scale its AI platform for auto-transport brokers
The Delaware-incorporated, Uzbekistan-based startup behind an AI operating system for U.S. car-shipping brokerages has closed its first external round and is preparing to roll AI agents out across ten live customers. TheCarGo, an Uzbekistan-based startup building an AI operating system for U.S. auto-transport brokerages, has raised $110,000 in its first external round. The backers are Yoshlar Ventures, Uzbekistan's state fund for young founders targeting global markets, and Yasin Ehsan, a U.S.-based angel investor. The company confirmed the capital has been received. The problem U.S. auto-transport brokerages run their operations across a fragmented stack of tools — CRM, quoting software, dispatch systems, carrier communication, dialers, and payment platforms — all running in parallel and rarely talking to each other. For a small shop, this means constant manual work, missed follow-ups, and time spent on coordination instead of closing shipments. The product TheCarGo consolidates all of these tools into one platform. The company is now layering AI agents on top to automate calls, texts, and bookings — taking repetitive work off the broker's plate entirely. "This round goes straight into the AI agents. The point is to take the calls, the texts, and the follow-ups off the broker's plate, so a one- or two-person shop can run like a much bigger one," said Ziyobek Turdiev, Founder and CEO. TheCarGo is incorporated in Delaware as TheCarGo OS Inc. and currently operates from Uzbekistan, with a U.S. relocation planned for 2026. Traction TheCarGo signed its first paying customer in March 2025 and today serves ten active U.S. brokerage companies, several of which migrated from Salesforce, spreadsheets, and standalone phone systems. The platform is approved by both Central Dispatch and Super Dispatch — the two industry systems most U.S. brokers depend on. The company has also secured AWS cloud credits and a grant from ElevenLabs to develop its AI voice agents. The team The company is led by Ziyobek Turdiev, a former U.S. auto-transport broker who went on to run two car-shipping companies before building the software, and co-founder and CTO Bakhtiyor Ergashev, who leads engineering. Use of funds and next steps The new capital is being directed into shipping the first two AI agents, supporting brokerages currently onboarding, and hiring. Two AI agents are scheduled to ship within two to three months, with full deployment across the active customer base expected within six. TheCarGo plans to open a larger, U.S.-led follow-on round in the next six to eight months.
Kazakh Founders Raise $21.5M in AI
Nace.AI raised $21.5M. The round was led by General Catalyst. Fundraising took about two months: 42 meetings and 41 rejections. The deal was closed in 36 hours after the first commitment. According to CEO Dos Bakytzhan, one “yes” was enough. The company builds specialized AI models for the enterprise sector. The first product is an AI agent for financial auditing: document analysis, risk detection, transaction testing, and reporting. Up to 20x faster execution. Focused on the US market, now scaling in Silicon Valley. The funding will be used for team growth, infrastructure, and data. The team has already doubled and continues hiring engineers, ML specialists, and product managers. Long term focus is AI systems that can handle a significant share of company operations.
Tashkent to Host Digital Uzbekistan 2026
On May 19–20, 2026, Tashkent will host the International PLUS-Forum Digital Uzbekistan — one of the largest events in Central Asia focused on digital transformation, fintech, and payment infrastructure. The forum is being held for the sixth time and has become a key platform for dialogue between banks, regulators, IT companies, fintech startups, and international partners. In 2025, the event gathered over 2,000 delegates from 36 countries, with more than 150 speakers and 100+ exhibitors. Key topics for 2026 include: • digital banking and fintech • cybersecurity • artificial intelligence and emerging technologies • cryptocurrencies and blockchain • CBDCs and cross-border payments • e-commerce and digital ecosystems • Islamic finance • business digitalization The forum will take place at Azimut Grand Hotel with the support of the National Agency for Perspective Projects and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan. Learn more: https://uz.plus-forum.com/
Apply to Uzum Hackathon
On April 11–12, Uzum will host a hackathon for students, young professionals, and anyone who wants to try solving real-world problems. Participants will work on cases in e-commerce, digital advertising, and HR tech, and present their solutions to Uzum experts. Format: teams of 3 to 5 people. Choose a track, build a solution, and present it to the experts. Prize pool: • 1st place — 30,000,000 UZS • 2nd place — 20,000,000 UZS • 3rd place — 10,000,000 UZS Registration: http://uzum-hackathon.com/
OpenAI shuts down Sora and video direction
OpenAI has announced the shutdown of its AI video generation platform Sora. The company thanked users and said it will share further details soon, including timelines for shutdown, API access, and how created content will be handled. According to The Wall Street Journal, the move is part of a broader shift toward enterprise use cases and programming ahead of a potential IPO in 2026. CEO Sam Altman also confirmed that not only the consumer app but the developer platform will be discontinued, and video features will not be developed further within ChatGPT.
Yoshlar Ventures doubles fund to $20M
Uzbekistan’s state-backed venture fund Yoshlar Ventures has announced an increase in its capital from $10M to $20M, with plans to reach $30M by 2027. The expansion will strengthen investment activity at the pre-seed and seed stages, where private capital is typically limited. The fund focuses on supporting founders from Uzbekistan building products for global markets. To date, Yoshlar Ventures has invested in 7 startups across EdTech, FinTech, AdTech and other sectors. According to CEO Abdulaziz Yakubov, the portfolio is expected to grow to 30 companies by the end of 2026. With the increased capital, the fund plans to scale deal flow with ticket sizes up to $400K, expand its presence in the US, UK and MENA markets, and strengthen support for portfolio companies, including corporate governance. Yoshlar Ventures aims to build institutional venture infrastructure in Central Asia by providing founders with access to capital, global networks, and international markets. Photo: uzdaily
Halyk Bank and Click deal collapsed
The deal for Halyk Bank to acquire a 49% stake in Uzbekistan’s payment system Click collapsed, as the closing deadline expired on December 31, 2025, according to materials prepared for the bank’s annual general meeting. The structure initially planned a stake swap Halyk Bank would acquire 49% of Click Click would receive 49% in Halyk’s subsidiary Tenge Bank The deal could have strengthened Halyk Bank’s position in Uzbekistan and integrated banking infrastructure with one of the country’s largest payment systems. The parties continue to discuss possible cooperation options.
Dalerkhon Nodirov appointed CEO of IT Park Ventures
The appointment follows Azamat Karamatov’s transition to CEO of IT Park Uzbekistan Dalerkhon previously worked at AloqaVentures and has been with IT Park Ventures since 2024, leading investments and later M&A As of 2025, the fund’s portfolio includes ~70 startups across 15+ countries 38 startups received direct investments, while ~30 joined via partner programs Focus areas: FinTech, EdTech, SaaS, AI Co-investors include 30+ funds such as Alchemist, 500 Global, Plug and Play, and Purple Ventures In 2026, IT Park Ventures plans to scale Seed and Series A investments, with a focus on AI, GameDev, and launching joint funds with international partners
United Ventures invested $100,000 in Smartcast
United Ventures invested $100,000 in Smartcast. Today, United Ventures and Smartcast signed an investment agreement. As part of the deal, Smartcast raised $100,000. The funds will be used to further develop the product and expand market presence. Smartcast is a technology solution for managing and broadcasting media content across screens.
Yoshlar Ventures made soft commitments totaling around $1M to UzCombinator startups
Startups that completed the UzCombinator accelerator have moved to the next stage and received investment commitments. List of startups and amounts: • Ravon Cloud — $35K • Between — $80K • The Cargo — $100K • TTLK — $100K • Aftanomhub — $35K • Mebelim — $30K • Flow — $80K • Diip.uz — $100K • Bozorly AI — $35K • Zehnly — $30K • FBA Flow — $50K • Business Robots AI — $150K • Oqim — $25K • Lumi — $30K • Kontent Coach — $35K • Moomkin — $30K These are preliminary investment agreements (soft commitments) that may be finalized in later stages.
inDrive acquires Pakistani quick-commerce startup Krave Mart
According to TechCrunch, ride-hailing company inDrive has acquired the Pakistani quick-commerce startup Krave Mart. The deal was agreed last year and has received approval from the Competition Commission of Pakistan. Financial terms were not disclosed. Krave Mart was founded in 2021 and operates in Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi. The startup delivers groceries in about 30 minutes through a network of dark stores. inDrive previously invested in the company in December 2024, and in January 2025 the companies launched grocery delivery services in Pakistan. The acquisition is part of inDrive’s strategy to build a super-app and expand beyond ride-hailing. Today inDrive operates in more than 1,000 cities across 48 countries, with over 400 million app downloads. According to Sensor Tower, since 2022 the company has been the second most downloaded ride-hailing app in the world. Image Credits: Getty Images