PULS AI Wins the Idea Miners Finals in Karaganda and Receives 2 million ₸

On October 28, the House of Friendship in Karaganda hosted the finals of Idea Miners, Karaganda Startup Battle, the second stage of the startup competition in Kazakhstan’s regions. The competition’s prize pool totaled 4,000,000 ₸, with partners adding grants and certificates. A total of 109 applications were submitted from various regions of Kazakhstan, and 15 projects advanced to the finals.

First place and 2,000,000 ₸ went to PULS AI, an AI co-pilot for clinics that identifies errors in medical documents before they are submitted to insurance providers. The project has 17 paying clinics—9 of which are public—and more than 1,000 doctors on the platform. Its MRR grew 16.6-fold over the first 9 months of 2026. Each team had 3 minutes to present their project and another 2 minutes to answer questions from the jury; evaluations were based on seven criteria: problem, solution, market, business model, traction, competitors, and team.

Second place and 1,000,000 ₸ went to CortexAI: The AI predicts the risk of transplant rejection based on genetic data; the company has 7 partner hospitals, its own dataset of 23,000 records, and $140,000 in grant funding. Third place and 500,000 ₸ went to SuGuard, an AI-powered optical glucometer that measures blood sugar without a finger prick; the prototype has 94% accuracy and has been tested in two clinics. OPENsport, an AI platform for scouting and evaluating young soccer players via video, with over 600 users and 3,000 AI analyses, received a special nomination and 400,000 ₸.

Other projects with working products also made it to the finals. MultiCode Stations from Astana is digitizing industrial rail stations and is already operating at three stations belonging to a major industrial holding company. PrintBox from Karaganda: 24/7 printing terminals with payment via the Unified QR code, 10 million ₸ in revenue in the first year, and a network that has grown from 3 to 6 terminals. The jury included venture capitalist Pavel Koktychev, Rudolf Sukut (Starbuilding), Roman Belopolsky (4sell.ai), Raimbek Yegemberdin (cc.dev), and Madiyar Bakbergenov (PanDev).