Yoshlar Ventures, Uzbekistan’s government-backed pre-seed and seed fund, today announced a new mentorship program bringing four Silicon Valley founders to Uzbekistan to work directly with a cohort of the country’s top-performing startups. The founders will be in Uzbekistan from August 17 to 22, 2026.
The program marks one of the first formal engagements between Silicon Valley founders and Uzbekistan’s startup ecosystem, and follows a period of rapid growth for the country’s startup scene. Uzbekistan ranked #1 globally for startup ecosystem growth in the 2026 StartupBlink Global Startup Ecosystem Index.
“Our founders have never lacked talent or ambition. What they’ve needed is proximity to people who’ve built category-defining companies,” said Abdulaziz Yakubov, CEO of Yoshlar Ventures. “This program isn’t about importing Silicon Valley to Tashkent. It’s about putting founders who are already outperforming on the numbers in the room with people who’ve done exactly what they’re trying to do next.”
Over five days, participating founders will work with the visiting mentors on fundraising strategy, product-market fit, and go-to-market execution through a mix of workshops, office hours, and one-on-one sessions. The cohort spans early-stage companies across robotics, physical intelligence, artificial intelligence, security agents, developer tools, regulated industries, health tech, and AI-native SaaS, at stages ranging from MVP to first paying customers to $1M+ in annual revenue.
The visiting mentors bring their mentality from across the San Francisco startup ecosystem, including founders who studied at MIT, UC Berkeley, and San Jose State University and have raised between $1M and $11M for their companies.
“I’ve mentored hundreds of early-stage founders through Headstarter, and what struck me on the ground in Tashkent is how little the fundamentals actually differ,” said Yasin Ehsan, Chief Executive Officer of Headstarter Inc. “These founders move fast and they’re scrappy, less complacent than a lot of what I see across the U.S. What they’ve been missing isn’t skill. It’s access. That’s a solvable problem, and it’s why I wanted to be part of this.”
The program is the latest in a series of Yoshlar Ventures initiatives connecting Uzbek founders with international capital, investors, and expertise.
