A student from Pavlodar Igor Martynyuk created TabAI, an AI assistant already used by approximately 20,000 people worldwide. The startup has attracted $35,000 in angel investment, a Google grant for infrastructure development, and a full grant from Y Combinator, one of the world's most prestigious startup accelerators. As well as YC team invited Igor to Silicon Valley, In this article El.kz shares the details of the startup.
TabAI is an AI-powered assistant that analyzes a user's digital activity, automatically structures tasks, helps set priorities, and combats information overload. The product addresses one of the primary pain points of modern life: how to stay focused in a world of endless tabs, notifications, and open windows.
First major victories
Today, TabAI has approximately 20,000 active users globally. The startup has already yielded significant results: $35,000 in angel investments and the official status of Ambassador for Cursor, one of the world's fastest-growing AI startups. In this role, Igor will develop the community in Kazakhstan and Central Asia by hosting hackathons, meetups, and educational events.
A Historic Invitation to Y Combinator
Igor became the first school student from Central Asia to be invited to the prestigious YC Startup School educational program. Although the program is typically designed for adult founders, the Y Combinator team made an exception, fully covering all expenses, including the flight to Silicon Valley, accommodation and trainings.
The YC AI Startup School is an intensive program for early-stage startups where founders gain access to mentors, practical workshops, and networking opportunities with investors and Silicon Valley founders. Participants are taught how to rapidly test hypotheses, find product-market fit, scale AI products, and prepare for applications to the main Y Combinator batch. Typically, the team evaluates the quality of the idea, the strength of the team, product scalability, and whether AI is the core of the solution rather than just an add-on feature. Growth speed also plays a vital role; TabAI’s 20,000-strong user base served as a powerful argument in favor of the project.
The Google Grant: What Kind of Support?
An additional milestone for TabAI was the Google for Startups Cloud Program grant. This support program provides startups with cloud credits, access to computing power, AI services, tools for model training and data storage, and expert support. For AI startups, these resources are especially critical, as they significantly reduce infrastructure costs and allow for faster product scaling.
The next step for the student is participating in international acceleration programs and applying for the main Y Combinator selection.