AI startups at the Central Eurasian Venture Forum 2023
Artificial Intelligence decided what startups and investors should talk about at the largest forum in Almaty, and as a result, the size of investments broke the records of previous years.
The Central Eurasian Venture Forum 2023 took place on June 2, attracted IT startups, venture investors and officials. The organizer was MOST Holding and Investbanq. And for the first time in the history of Central Asia the agenda of the event was prepared with the help of AI.
According to Digital Business, more than 400 startups and 600 individual entrepreneurs gathered at the site. And the outcome was the attraction of $8 million in investments. The record of last year's forum was $5 million.
Can businesses trust Artificial Intelligence?
The Verigram team participated with interest in discussing the challenges of using AI in modern business. Our experience tells us that AI is a great helper, but the final decision must always remain with humans.
The company's co-founder, Igor Littig, was a speaker on the panel "Breakthrough AI: Impact on Transactions and the Venture Market." Speaking about software development, Igor mentioned such popular tools as ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot. He stressed that while these tools are actively used by programmers, they still require the user to be at least proficient in using them. "Generative AI bots still make mistakes in the code, and you need to have enough expertise to fix them," Igor said.
Timothy Lloyd, director of business development at Quantumrock, said they also have engineers who collaborate with AI in their work. The financial market is noisy and information-saturated, so it's easier to make predictions with AI computing support. Robots help the experts, but they still make mistakes. Lloyd also believes that the ultimate decision should still be left to humans.
What about new markets? Can AI take a company to another level? "Every new market is a ground-up R&D effort. It's always difficult for a team of engineers to develop a solution that's tailored to a particular market. It takes research and collaborative communication. Without human communication, it's impossible to identify needs," Igor noted.
The panel speakers agreed with Igor on the importance of personal relationships in transactions, an aspect that is not yet a substitute for AI. Robin Butler, a partner at Sturgeon Capital, added that “numbers will help you negotiate with investors, but the conversation won't even start without the right founding team.”
"How to ride a unicorn?"
Dosym Satpayev, a popular Kazakhstani political scientist, presented his new book “How to Ride the Unicorn?” along with the results of his own research on the state of and potential for Kazakhstan's IT ecosystem.
Adlet Mukashov, co-founder of Verigram, previously participated in the study as a respondent. Adlet spoke about the challenges faced by local start-ups in launching and scaling. He shared his suggestions on how to improve the IT infrastructure in Kazakhstan and noted the importance of state support for startups, especially those with export potential.
You can read the research here: https://most.com.kz/almatyecosystem
Support an active community
The Central Eurasian Venture Forum successfully brought together the startup and venture capital community. As a professional provider of biometric verification services, we were delighted to meet enthusiasts in the field of AI. There are many interesting companies and skilled professionals in Kazakhstan. We would be pleased to cooperate with others and exchange expertise for future successes in the domestic and foreign markets.
