When I founded bYb Capital in 2024, located in Almaty and Palo Alto, the first question was: why now?

Kazakhstan offers strong opportunities, skilled engineers, low labor costs, a favorable environment, and supportive tax legislation. Sometimes, what it lacks is the infrastructure that venture capital provides: the willingness to take risks, to add value, and to open doors to global markets.

This has been the takeaway from a decade of working with the Saby Foundation and the Build Your Business grant program, which awarded $2.2 million to 80 entrepreneurs.

The outcome was that some succeeded, some failed, and all learned valuable lessons. Grants stimulate imagination, but imagination needs patient capital that understands the local environment and has a global perspective. And that is exactly what I have set out to do.

When I founded byb Capital, I had been in the startup world for many years, supporting companies and founders from the ground up across many markets and countries.

Faith is required at the pre-seed and seed levels, as the entrepreneur needs not only capital but also structure, mentorship, access to global markets, follow-on capital, and venture capitalists that support the entrepreneur, not the idea.

Kazakhstan has created a world-class startup ecosystem, invested over $80 million in venture capital in 2024, and hosted over 1,600 tech companies at the Astana Hub. The Silk Road Innovation Hub connects innovators from nine countries.

What I find most exciting, however, is the ambitions of the new generation of Kazakhstani founders, who are no longer building for the local market but for the world.

bYb Capital is my bet on this new generation.

Do I want to earn strong returns? Absolutely, that’s what VCs do. But success, true success, is founders reaching their fullest potential, creating meaningful employment, generating wealth that stays and grows locally, and an ecosystem that becomes self-sustaining.