New startup ideas that can be implemented in the market of Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries, as well as receive investments for their implementation. 

Hello everyone My name is Pavel Myasnikov, I am a partner at Funders Ventures. We are a seed-stage venture fund investing in FinTech/AI/SaaS startups in the USA and emerging markets. I believe in the high potential of the markets of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, so in this blog I plan to share attractive ideas emerging in the United States that can be implemented in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries.

More about me and Funders Ventures:

• The Foundation's website: http://funders.vc 
• Contact: t.me/pavel_miasnikov 
• My Telegram channel: t.me/venture_a_guess

Where the ideas come from. 

In 2024, the Funders Ventures team looked at investments in more than 6,000 projects and conducted more than 500 calls with startups. Company founders write to us and our co-investors send us projects, and we also look at projects in more than 50 accelerators in the United States and Europe, read hundreds of pages of industrial reports, and communicate with angel investors and industry experts to better understand which niches and ideas are most promising for implementation in emerging markets. 

New ideas in the field of AI.

The problem: Real estate sellers and landlords face difficulties editing photos for ads. Many of them have no experience in high-quality image processing, which reduces the attractiveness of objects.

Solution: An AI platform for automatic photo processing of rooms, which allows you to add virtual furniture, perform basic retouching and remove unwanted objects from images, making photos more professional.

Why it's interesting: the market is growing rapidly — some companies have reached $5+ million in annual revenue (ARR) in less than a year since sales began (revenue growth of more than 25% month-on-month). There are also already examples of early exits with estimates of more than $10+ million 1.5-2 years after the start of the project. However, the B2B/B2C segments are already oversaturated. The technology is very simple and has a risk of commoditization.

Clients: Real estate agencies, large landlords and property owners. 

Other segments: Large real estate transaction platforms will include such a solution in their product matrix. You can make a whitelable solution for them. 

What to pay attention to: Technologically, the solution is quite simple. Its successful implementation will require an excellent understanding of digital marketing, the ability to optimize the unit economy, or strong B2E sales skills (if you plan to make a whitelable solution for real estate sites). It is also advisable to understand the regional specifics of marketing and design in Kazakhstan or another country of the project. 

Expansion. In which markets, other than Kazakhstan and Central Asia, such a product can be sold: I assume that a B2B/B2C product can still be sold in markets with unique design patterns (e.g. Japan, Korea or India). 

Problem: lawyers often describe legally significant facts of a case to form a legal position: events, dates, or actions of individuals. Such a sammarisation takes many hours of work for a junior lawyer. 

Solution: Use AI to sammararize legally significant documents containing factual information. 

Why this is interesting: there are examples of solutions in the United States that have shown revenue growth from one to tens of thousands of US dollars per month over the past six months. Such projects increase revenue at a rate of 15-25% month-on-month. 

Clients: you should pay attention to migration, criminal and labor law. Yes, it's not hype. However, there are a large number of non-legal documents in this area, from which it is necessary to collect facts for a legal position. For example, in the United States, such facts are collected by English-speaking paralegals based in the Philippines. 

Other segments: The medical law segment also looks promising (with a large number of medical records); an additional computer vision solution that processes records "by hand" in medical institutions may be of interest. 

What you should pay attention to: in such a business, the ability to sell in the LegalTech segment and in B2B in general is important. The product is quite simple, technically it is copied quite easily, so the one who will be the fastest to "run" will be able to win the market. Just like in any LegalTech business, it is extremely important to understand the specifics of legislative regulation in the country of the project implementation. Pay attention to the number of court cases per year in the country where the project is being implemented - this will help you calculate the size of the market. 

Expansion. In which markets, other than Kazakhstan and Central Asia, such a product can be sold: Keep in mind that regional markets for legal services are usually very small. It will be easiest to develop the solution in markets with similar legal institutions or to deploy the technical infrastructure in large markets of non-English law (for example, Germany, France or the Netherlands).

The problem: In the United States, call centers of pharmaceutical companies or companies developing medical equipment are required to record incoming calls and be responsible for the quality of the responses provided. 

Use case: In the United States, on the back of the medicine package, you can find a phone number for questions related to the use of the drug. This is the number of the pharmaceutical company, which is required to record and decrypt calls, as well as provide correct answers to requests. The pharmaceutical company is responsible for non-fulfillment of this obligation.

The complexity of the problem lies in the fact that not only consumers call this number (who usually ask simple questions, for example, “is it possible to divide such a tablet in half”). It also receives calls from attending physicians who ask more complex questions related to the chemical composition and dosages of the drug. It sometimes takes days or even weeks to answer such difficult questions.

Solution: An AI for recording and decrypting calls, with the function of forming a knowledge base and preparing high-quality answers to questions. 

Why it's interesting: I've met a couple of startups that started making a solution in early to mid-2024 and have already reached $200-300 thousand in annual revenue (ARR) (high speed for the medical market). 

Clients: any companies that need to record calls and provide high-quality responses to them under threat of heavy fines. 

What you should pay attention to: the “problem” in the niche is strongly related to legislative regulation in the USA. When selling such a product, it is worth paying attention to the legislative regulation in Kazakhstan related to the storage, transfer and processing of records of such calls, as well as the obligations of companies in Kazakhstan and the region to record and decrypt such issues under threat of a fine. 

The problem: The Internet network installers are working blindly. Imagine that your Wi-Fi Internet connection is broken. You call the hotline and call the foreman at home. You are usually asked a couple of clarifying questions about the network status. Then the dispatcher looks at the technical data about the failures at your address, and then transmits information about the problem to the installer in such a way that he has to start most of the process anew on the spot. 

Solution: Recording the call and subsequent decryption using AI of the client's request and questions from the hotline specialist. Additionally, you need to connect an AI agent that will access the provider's network status data at the client's address, and then send the debugger a list of possible causes of the breakdown. 

Why it's interesting: The solution is very narrow, so competition and strong teams won't be there for a while. I recently saw a project in the USA that signed up the first three clients ($100,000 in annual revenue, ARR) in a couple of months and received venture capital funding estimated at over $20 million. 

Clients: Internet service providers

Other segments include data centers, crypto mining, AI clusters, and other data processing companies. 

What you should pay attention to: Sales. The segment is narrow, and it will not be possible to attract large venture capital financing. The winner will be the one who can quickly capture a larger market share. 

Expansion. In which markets, other than Kazakhstan and Central Asia, such a product can be sold: The market as a whole looks like a “blue ocean”. Such a product can be sold in any market, but it is better to expand across homogeneous regions: for example, move from Kazakhstan to the entire Central Asian market or move from Mexico to the entire Latin American market. 

Idea 5. Comprehensive AI solutions for medical and dental clinics.

The problem: Medical and dental clinics use outdated ERP systems, and doctors are often burdened with paperwork to fill out patient information and save patient-related documents.

Solution: a comprehensive product that links the decoding of communication between patients and the doctor, between doctors, the doctor's records in the system, as well as the decoding of X-ray, cardiographic or other images. 

Why this is interesting: I recently came across a project operating in the US market, which was launched back in 2018, but showed virtually no revenue growth until 2023 (the market moment has not arrived). At the same time, revenue has increased 15-fold over the past 1.5 years: the founders say they feel that demand in the market has changed. 

Clients: medical organizations, primarily dentistry. 

What you should pay attention to: In addition to the ability and desire to sell in the medical segment, in this product it is important to be able to create complex products that integrate different types of solutions: image decoding, voices, interaction with hardware. 

Expansion. In which markets, other than Kazakhstan and Central Asia, such a product can be implemented: technically, the product implies integration with existing ERP systems for medical and dental organizations. Expansion can be made to countries and regions where current partner ERP systems are already in operation. At the same time, integration with ERP systems is technically not the most difficult part of this business, and therefore it is possible to implement such a business in any region where there are a sufficient number of medical and dental organizations. 

We carefully and carefully treat the confidential information of startup founders. All of the above information about startups and their businesses is available or was available at the time of writing in open sources or the public version of the startup's investor presentation. 

Please remember that each idea must be tested directly in Kazakhstan or in other markets. Even projects with the strongest financial performance in the USA or Europe will not necessarily have the same good economy in the Kazakh market. 

I will be glad if you write a detailed comment about the usefulness of this content in the comments or in my personal messages. I will also be glad to discuss these ideas with experts, lawyers or industrial consultants in the market of Kazakhstan and beyond.