NUR-SULTAN – The Astana Hub, the Kazakh international technopark of IT startups, presented their annual rating of the ten best national IT startups. The technopark ranked the startups based on their market assessment, problem solving, innovativeness, go-to-market strategy, growth rate, and business development, teams, and social importance.
The OrionM2M startup team led the list with their internet of things (IoT) devices, software for energy-efficient networks entirely compatible with any Long Range wide-area networks (LoRaWAN). In addition to this, OrionM2M recently obtained the European certificate of conformity with health, safety, and environmental protection standards for products sold within the European Economic Area (EEA).
Cerebra, a MedTech startup, made it to the second line in the list. The team developed an artificial intelligence system that can assist medical workers in the early diagnosis of stroke by quickly reading computed tomography images.
Citix closed out the top three for its intelligent transport information and navigation system. The real-time smart system brings a new solution to ensuring more comfortable movement in a big city. The top three will receive special gifts from partners and organizers.
“This is a landmark achievement for us in particular and the industry in general for a number of reasons,” Citix team wrote in an instagram post. “We have always treated our product with special love, understanding its role for the city and its residents. Secondly, the first two places out of three are directly related to the Smart City system, which is an indicator of the vector of innovation development in Kazakhstan and the world.”
Several top-listers developed their products to solve everyday problems for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Clockster, for example, developed a sophisticated system that SMEs could use to replace a human resource manager. Paloma365 offers to control and optimize the accounting of SMEs on their cloud-based system. Campeat’s AI marketing system can increase profitability and attract new clients for businesses.
There are a few educational startups. OKOO made the top list with an online platform that teaches schoolchildren coding in a more efficient and engaging way than formal education does. Supermoms Club designed an app to help young mothers to learn about pregnancy to ensure their healthy pregnancy period and reduce infant mortality.
The list also included i-GUARD, a system analyzing space for emergency situations, and QuantDART, a digital asset-management app.
At the bare minimum, the hub required all the startups to be registered in Kazakhstan, present an innovative technological solution, have at least a viable solution or a working product, and have a product with the potential to scale up.
The Astana Hub will promote the top ten startups to their pool of more than a hundred domestic and foreign investors. The technopark’s project partner Seedstars Kazakhstan, a part of a Swiss-based private group of companies, will individually mentor the startups on attracting investments.
The Astana Hub prioritizes developing an innovation ecosystem and human capital in Kazakhstan. It has several educational and business programs. In 2020, all its programs entirely switched to a virtual format to comply with social distancing measures. Its main program is a startup accelerator. A total of 94 startup projects participated in three rounds of the hub’s acceleration program this year. The programs are open for foreign IT companies as well.
