In an era in which the world feels increasingly divided between east and west, Uzbekistan appeared as a rare middle ground, as the home -country unicorn of the Central Asian nation, Vitoraised $ 65.5 million in a new financial round joined by Chinese Tencent and the New York and London-based VR capital, with the participation of US-based Finsight Capital.
The all-equality circle brings the post-currency estimate of Tashkest-headed Startup to about $ 1.5 billion almost 30% jump from $ 1.16 billion’s estimate it announced when it announced when it First successful unicorn status in March of last year.
Founded in 2022, Uzum began its journey in Uzbekistan with an e-commerce market called Uzum Market, and shortly after its success, the starting added Fintech with a debt card and then expanded into its express food delivery, Uzum Tezkor.
Uzum currently has more than 17 million monthly active users-almost half of Uzbekistan’s adult population, or about two-thirds of all smart users in the country and 16,000 traders. In the first half of 2025 alone, the startup recorded $ 250 million in gross commodity value (GMV), more than 1.5 times a year after a year.
Its digital bank arm, Uzum Bank, launched a co-marked Visa Debit card with pre-approved credit limits in August last year. This product has already broadcast 2 million cards and is on the road to exceed 5 million after the end of the year. Meanwhile, Uzum’s insecure lending business has hit $ 200 million in funded volume in Q1, growing 3.4 times from the same period last year. The starting up too Posted $ 150 million in net income in 2024-50% per year post-year jump.
With a portfolio encompassing e-commerce, Fintech and digital banking, as a startup just over three years have managed to scale this rapidly-and attract the attention of global investors as Tencent?
Uzum founder and general manager Djasur Djumaev attributes the success to a combination of deep local knowledge and disciplined execution. He believes that understanding the culture, consuming behavior and business environment of the country – and paired with the technical and operational expertise developed by global companies – was critical to building a company that can scale rapidly and sustainably.
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The startup built its digital and physical infrastructure of zero to trigger its business in Uzbekistan. This includes setting logistics capacity, which has grown to 112,000 square meters, with a storage capacity of 1.1 million square feet, allowing it to process more than 200,000 orders daily.
The launch also set up more than 1,500 spicy points through 450 cities, cities, places and towns in the country to enable subsequent deliveries. These selection points also allow the broadcast and distribution of Uzum bank cards.
“Be betting on local expertise and infrastructure in border markets gives you an advantage to then perform and scale your company very quickly,” Djumaev told Techcrunch in an exclusive interview.
Initially, Uzum worked according to a performed-of-operation model to enable business deliveries. Since then it has expanded to include full and selling and delivering-sales options, with a goal to roll 20-30% of deliveries with these new models. These new delivery models will also help Uzum expand their storage storage units, which are currently over 1.5 million available for its next day delivery service, up from over 600,000 SKS at the time of their last financial announcement in March 2024.
When asked what Tencent brought on its cap this time, Uzum’s chief strategy and business development officer, Nikolay Seleznev, told Techcrunch that the strong growth metrics of the runway convinced the Chinese investor to come on board after several quarters of ongoing discussions.
Uzum plans to grow its Fintech business by introducing a deposit product in September and long-term (more than 12 months in maturity) a credit facility for its B2C customers. The startup is also planning to expand its business base and help its existing and new traders through its QR code payment processing, expand its Visa debit card debit card program and build new products to support small and medium -sized businesses in the country.
Similarly, the starting plans to introduce new products by adding value-added services to their business business, including those helping to generate advertising revenue. It also works to climb its financial infrastructure further with AI increasingly inserted between credit -scoring, fraudulent protection and personality experiences of users.
Further, Uzum plans to open its e-commerce market for international traders, starting with those in China and Turkey in September.
“We expect 10 to 15% of overseas activity coming from these countries,” Seleznev said.
The startup has more than 12,000 people in its workforce, including blue -colored workers at its pickles, as well as Te Techniko, engineering, and product equipment throughout its business verticals.
Like other companies that are profitable and have multiple avenues to generate continuous income over time, Uzum has plans to become public in the medium term. But before that, it aims to raise a B -round of $ 250– $ 300 million in the first half of 2026.
This was said, the startup has so far raised $ 137 million in equity, including the latest round.
