Uzbek startup Cerberus has won the regional final of Road to TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2026, earning a ticket to San Francisco. For Uzbekistan’s young technology industry, the result is another sign of its push beyond the domestic market. For Cerberus, the challenge is now to convince international investors and clients that an AI tool developed in Tashkent to find vulnerabilities can compete in the global cybersecurity market.
Cerberus took first place in the regional final on August 12. WeGlobal AI finished second, followed by LOOQ. Twenty-two startups reached the final after being selected from 726 applications from 39 countries. Uzbekistan was represented by six projects.
The three winners will represent Central Eurasia at Startup Battlefield 200 in San Francisco. TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will run from October 13 to 15. Twenty of the 200 companies will be selected to pitch on the main stage, with five advancing to the final round to compete for the $100,000 equity-free grand prize and the Disrupt Cup.
The three regional winners will share a $100,000 investment pool, with Cerberus receiving $50,000. Competition rules state that each investment will be made on standard market terms in exchange for equity. Astana Hub Ventures and IT Park Ventures are providing the funding in partnership with Silkroad Innovation Hub. According to the organizers, the winners will also receive a combined $100,000 in OpenAI API credits.
Cerberus founder and CEO Aziz Akhmedkhodjaev told The Times of Central Asia that two factors were behind the company’s success: the product and the team’s ability to explain the problem it solves.
“I would say there are two main things here. The first, of course, is the product. Everyone understood that we had created something the market really needs,” he said. “I think that was the key to winning. I didn’t spend a single second of the pitch on anything other than clearly explaining the problem, how the solution works, and its potential.”
Cerberus describes its product as an AI-powered cybersecurity system capable of finding vulnerabilities in corporate applications and IT infrastructure. Demand for such tools is growing alongside the spread of generative AI: companies and individual developers can write software faster, but the volume of code that needs to be checked for errors and potential attack vectors is also increasing.
“Literally everyone is writing code with artificial intelligence now. Vulnerabilities, coding errors, and other weaknesses are appearing much faster,” Akhmedkhodjaev said.
The company says Cerberus allows users to give its AI agent access to an application or IT infrastructure and task it with finding vulnerabilities. The agent can also test authentication and perform other security checks. According to Akhmedkhodjaev, however, using a general-purpose AI model for such work can itself create risks.
“If you give Claude or another AI access to a vulnerability in a real bank, even the smallest mistake can lead to serious financial losses,” he said.
The company says Cerberus is designed to restrict what its AI agent can do after identifying a weakness.
“In our project, there is a mathematical guarantee that if the artificial intelligence discovers a vulnerability, it cannot do anything malicious with it,” Akhmedkhodjaev said.
He said such safeguards require mathematical type theory as a basis, combined with practical experience in cybersecurity and software development.
Cerberus was developed and initially tested in Uzbekistan, but from the outset was intended for markets beyond the country.
“It was our first market, which is usually how it works. Of course, Uzbekistan will remain a market for us in the long term,” Akhmedkhodjaev said.
Cerberus participated in 500 Global’s Eurasia Batch 10 and says it received investment from the venture firm. The startup is now raising a new seed round and holding talks with venture funds in Uzbekistan and abroad. Akhmedkhodjaev declined to disclose the size of 500 Global’s investment.
Cerberus is expanding abroad as Uzbekistan seeks to increase IT service exports and attract foreign technology companies. The government is also developing the country’s venture capital market. That export strategy was showcased at the Global Business Services Forum, where discussions focused on AI-based outsourcing and ways to connect Uzbek companies with overseas clients.
Akhmedkhodjaev said the country’s venture capital market had expanded over the past two years. IT Park Uzbekistan reported in May that 22 venture funds were operating in the country. He also pointed to efforts to train specialists and changes to the regulatory environment for technology businesses. Access to investment alone, however, does not solve one of the main problems Uzbek startups face abroad: a lack of name recognition.
“When you are just beginning to enter the international market, you run into difficulties because of a lack of trust and name recognition,” Akhmedkhodjaev said.
Startups from established technology hubs already benefit from the reputation of their local industries and the success of other companies. Uzbekistan has relatively few globally recognized technology brands, leaving startups to build that trust themselves.
Cerberus’s next major proving ground will be San Francisco. Startup Battlefield has been running for more than 15 years. TechCrunch lists Dropbox and Cloudflare among the companies that have gone through the program, along with Discord and Trello. According to the organizers, more than 1,700 participating companies have raised a combined $32 billion.
Akhmedkhodjaev, however, does not intend to measure Cerberus’s success by the number of competitions it wins. He will judge its progress by revenue and company valuation as it builds a sustainable international business.
“What matters to me is that the world sees that I represent a global company,” he said. “But a global company created by a founder from Uzbekistan, an Uzbek, so that others can also see that Uzbeks create very strong global companies and solutions.”
