Startup Nace.AI, founded by researchers from Kazakhstan, has raised $21.5 million from international investors. The round was led by General Catalyst.
The deal was closed in less than 36 hours after receiving the first investor commitment, despite the team having previously received 41 rejections.
“The hardest part is learning to speak the language of investors. We went through 41 rejections, and only one ‘yes’ triggered the whole process,” said Nace.AI CEO Dos Bakytzhan.
The company develops specialized language models for the corporate sector. Unlike general-purpose solutions, Nace.AI focuses on narrowly targeted models that integrate into business processes and deliver measurable results.
The company’s first product is an AI agent that performs financial audits. It analyzes large volumes of documents, identifies risks, tests transactions, and generates investor reports. According to the company, using the solution can reduce task completion time by up to 20 times.
“We are not trying to build a universal AI. We create models that solve specific tasks within a company as precisely as possible,” said CTO Zhanibek Datbayev.
The Nace.AI team is formed at the intersection of industry and academia. CEO Dos Bakytzhan previously led GOAT AI, a consumer product with an audience of more than 10 million users. It remained among the top apps in the App Store in Europe for 37 weeks and was acquired in 2025 by Spain’s Newry Global Media. Dos is a graduate of KBTU and a winner of international Olympiads and hackathons.
CTO Zhanibek Datbayev was responsible for model training infrastructure at Meta AI, served as a team lead for an alternative to Keras, is a silver medalist in competitive programming, a graduate of Purdue University, and a finalist of ACM ICPC.
Chief Scientist Abulkhair Saparov is a professor of AI at Purdue University, a graduate of Princeton and Carnegie Mellon, and the first Kazakh professor of deep machine learning in the United States.
“For us, it is essential to combine fundamental science and product. Without this, it is impossible to build reliable AI systems for the corporate environment, especially in finance,” said Abulkhair Saparov.
According to the founders, a key challenge in the market is the gap between the capabilities of generative AI and its application in real business processes.
“General-purpose models perform well in demos but do not deliver consistent value in business. We build solutions that integrate into a company’s operational environment and function within it,” the team noted.
The company initially focused on the US market and is now scaling its presence in Silicon Valley. This choice is driven by access to clients, capital, and faster decision-making.
The funds raised will be used to expand the team, develop infrastructure, and work with data. According to the team, the key goal is not just to automate individual tasks but to create AI solutions that become part of a company’s operating system.
The company also places special emphasis on talent development. Nace.AI is actively expanding its team and considering candidates from Central Asia. This offers an opportunity for engineers and AI specialists to join a global startup at the scaling stage and work on world-class challenges. Applications can be submitted via the company’s website.