How Astana Hub develops business angel culture in Kazakhstan

NUR-SULTAN - Astana Hub International Technopark of IT startups summed up two big events, the first is Investor School, an educational course for investors, the second one is Invest Day, a closed event for startups and investors. All these events are held under the IT BUSINESS-ANGEL Development Program in Kazakhstan.

Investor School is an intensive course on venture investing for business owners, investors and business angels. The course program is aimed at forming a holistic view of the methodology of evaluation and investment in technology companies. As a result of the two streams of the program, 77 investors and business angels were trained at the School of Investors. The first cohort of Investor School was held from 25 to 29 May this year, the second one lasted from 24 to 26 June.

"The Investor School has provided the necessary basic knowledge and best practices from experienced investors who have joined us from Kazakhstan and Russia. During the training we were able to go through the whole "life cycle" of investments - from finding suppliers to the exit of investments. Participants will certainly be more confident in reviewing potential transactions and will use the knowledge gained during the review and negotiation process, in other words, already in practice. It should be noted that there is great potential in the venture capital investment ecosystem in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The more people who have knowledge of venture investments and experience in investing in startups, the more innovations and successful startups will be launched in Kazakhstan" Yuri Rabinovich, a project curator and Monthly Ventures’ managing partner from Silicon Valley.

Not only local investors, but also those from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, the United States, Italy, France, Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands, the UK, the UAE, Indonesia and South Korea have shown interest in the new Astana Hub project. In total, the Investor School received over 580 applications for participation.

According to Astana Hub’s representatives, successful completion of the online school will give the graduates of the program an opportunity to earn on the market of venture investments, as well as will teach them to understand which companies are better to invest in.

All participants of the investor school educational course had an opportunity to take part in the Invest Day 2020 event and apply their knowledge in practice. The event brought together on-line investors from Kazakhstan and abroad, as well as young entrepreneurs with IT products. The main purpose of the event is to organize a business platform for investment attractive startups of Kazakhstan and venture capitalists who are ready to invest in Kazakhstani projects.

The Astana Hub’s press service reports that 83 applications from startups were received for participation in Invest Day 2020. In total 12 technological projects were selected: OkAuto, Paloma365, 1Fit, SEZUAL, Proportunity.kz, Green Bee, NT-SOFT, IN-VR, Logizi, OQUDA, Kid Security and Allhospital. All 12 startups presented their business projects to 48 investors from such countries as: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, United Kingdom, Netherlands, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia. Besides investors, foreign venture funds such as Tuz Ventures, Quest Ventures and 500 startups also took part in the event.

"It was a new experience for us and we would especially like to note that there were a lot of investors not only from Kazakhstan, but also from abroad at this event. The level of organization was very high, as was the level of preparation of startups. We gained huge experience and learned a lot of lessons, and immediately after the event have already made the first individual call with an investor", says Alina Abdrakhmanova, the co-founder of the project area of virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in VR.

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