A digital ecosystem called Uzum has become Uzbekistan's first tech 'unicorn' -- a pre-IPO company with a valuation of over $1 billion -- by attracting investment of more than $100 million this month. The bulk of this capital was put up by a Californian company, FinSight Ventures. Uzum, founded by Jasur Jumaev, the co-founder of KupiKupon, and Boris Dobrodeyev, the former CEO of the Russian social network VKontakte, provides e-commerce services and banking projects for individuals and small and medium-sized businesses through a superapp. The investors will hold stakes of less than 5% apiece, while Uzum's overall valuation has reached over $1.1 billion. Under the structure of the deal, the equity capital investment amounted to more than $50 million, and another $50 million was raised earlier in the form of loans. Prior to that, the founders had planned to raise $300 million. "We still plan to raise about $300 million during this year, but we have divided the round into two parts. This is the first one. The second part is already with the participation of funds from the Middle East, the UK and the U.S.," Jumaev said. The company has aggressive plans: to launch Uzbekistan's largest logistics complex for e-commerce, which will increase its turnover by 2.5 times and expand the area of warehouses to 500,000 square meters, and an increase in the number of order delivery points. By the end of 2023, Uzum had 10 million monthly users, and its e-commerce revenue exceeded $150 million. The next step for the first Uzbek tech unicorn will be an IPO, which is scheduled for 2026. According to Jumaev, the company is "considering all possibilities for optimal capital raising. One of the scenarios is to enter the Tashkent Stock Exchange and/or the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange with parallel placements on Western markets." FinSight Ventures believes that Uzum is a national leader in key business verticals such as fintech and e-commerce, which in the future will allow it to follow the example of Kaspi.kz, from neighboring Kazakhstan, and become the standalone leader of Uzbekistan's tech market. According to the international auditing company KPMG, Uzbekistan is showing very strong economic growth: the country's GDP growth for 2023 was 6%, and by 2030, under the strategy "Uzbekistan-2030," overall GDP may reach $160 billion. Uzbekistan's e-commerce is the fastest growing in Central Asia, forecasted to reach $1.8-$2.2 billion by 2027. That potential is attracting major online retail players to the country: the Russian company Wildberries has been operating in Uzbekistan since 2022, and Ozon, also of Russia, entered Uzbekistan in November 2023. In this context, burgeoning national champion Uzum has a solid chance at becoming the largest retailer in the country as early as next year.
