Uzbekistan’s homegrown startup Uzum recently raised $65.5 million in a new funding round co-led by China’s Tencent and New York- and London-based VR Capital, with participation from U.S.-based FinSight Ventures. This equity round boosted Uzum’s valuation to approximately $1.5 billion—a nearly 30% increase from its $1.16 billion valuation when it first became a unicorn in March of the previous year.
Founded in 2022, Uzum began as an e-commerce marketplace called Uzum Market. Following its initial success, the company expanded into fintech with the launch of a debit card and later added an express food delivery service, Uzum Tezkor. Today, Uzum serves over 17 million monthly active users—nearly half of
Uzbekistan’s adult population—and works with 16,000 merchants. In the first half of 2025, the company recorded $250 million in gross merchandise value, a 1.5-times increase year-over-year.
Uzum’s digital banking arm, Uzum Bank, launched a co-branded Visa debit card with pre-approved credit limits in August 2024, issuing 2 million cards so far, with projections to reach 5 million by year-end. Meanwhile, its unsecured lending business hit $200 million in financed volume in Q1 2025, growing 3.4 times from the previous year. Uzum posted $150 million in net income in 2024, representing a 50% year-over-year jump.
The startup built its digital and physical infrastructure from scratch, including over 112,000 square meters of logistics capacity and more than 1,500 pickup points across 450 cities, towns, and villages nationwide, facilitating next-day deliveries and card issuance.
Uzum plans to grow its fintech business further by introducing deposit products and long-term credit facilities later this year. It also aims to expand its merchant base and payment processing services and build new products to support small and medium enterprises. The company will open its e-commerce marketplace to international merchants from China and Turkey, expecting up to 15% of sales from cross-border trade.
With over 12,000 employees spanning warehouse and pickup point staff, as well as tech and product teams, Uzum is profitable and looking toward a future IPO. The startup plans a Series B fundraising round of $250–300 million in early 2026 to fuel continued growth and expansion. So far, Uzum has raised a total of $137 million in equity funding.
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