Uzum prepares for Series B funding round

Uzum, the leading digital services ecosystem in Uzbekistan, today announces its key results for the six months ended June 30, 2024.

Key operational and financial data

· Market GMV quadrupled year-on-year

· Uzum’s fintech loan portfolio has more than doubled

· Every third resident of Uzbekistan uses Uzum’s services

Uzum is currently preparing to raise a Series B funding round in Q4 2024 or Q1 2025 and aims to raise up to $300 million to fund the further development of its BNPL business, online lending products and e-commerce vertical.

The Uzum ecosystem recorded strong growth in 1H 2024, with consolidated net income increasing by 50% year-on-year due to the rapid development of e-commerce and fintech services. The total audience of the ecosystem almost doubled year-on-year and reached 10.6 million monthly active users, or about 30% of the population of Uzbekistan.

Nikolay Seleznev, Director of Strategy and Business Development at Uzum, commented:

“We are proud of the solid results Uzum has achieved in the first half of this year and are grateful to our investors, partners and customers for believing in our mission as we work to unlock the full potential of e-commerce and fintech in Uzbekistan. In the second half of 2024, we will lay the groundwork for the launch of the Uzum Bank card, as well as our online lending and deposit business. We plan to raise further funding later this year or early next year to accelerate growth in the promising Uzbekistan market. To this end, we are targeting large international funds that would play a key role in a potential listing on an international stock exchange in the medium term.”

E-commerce

Uzum’s e-commerce unit saw nearly fourfold growth in GMV as Uzum Market’s online marketplace further solidified its position as the country’s e-commerce leader. The market’s GMV increased 3.5x year-over-year, while the number of orders processed by the marketplace in H1 2024 more than tripled year-over-year to over 8 million, and the platform now has over 10,000 merchants. Looking ahead, the Company is on track to launch the first phase of the largest warehouse complex in Uzbekistan (77,000 sqm) by the end of the year to support Uzum Market’s continued expansion.

During this period, online food delivery service Uzum Tezkor became a significant factor in Uzum’s e-commerce business. In just one year of operation, Uzum Tezkor became the largest domestic delivery service in terms of geographic reach, covering eight of the country’s largest cities. The service continues to add new restaurants to offer customers more and more delivery options, and by the end of the period, 1,690 restaurants were operating on the platform.

Financial Technology

The company continued to focus on profitability and product development for its fintech businesses, in particular Uzum digital bank and Uzum Nasiya installment payment service. This quarter, the bank launched Visa virtual cards in pre-sale with attractive terms for Uzbek consumers and plans to actively roll out online lending products over the next 12-18 months as the company undergoes a strategic transformation into a full-fledged neobank with a full suite of everyday banking services.

Uzum Nasiya, a convenient installment service for everyday needs, saw its TFV grow 2.5 times year-on-year, while its loan portfolio more than doubled. The number of users with approved limits stood at 2.8 million at the end of Q2 2024, up 27% from Q1 2024. The service also demonstrated strong synergy with online marketplace Uzum, with over 55% of Uzum Market orders paid through Nasiya’s BNPL solution during the quarter.

In the spring of 2024, Uzum reached a valuation of over $1 billion and became the first technological unicorn in Uzbekistan, which placed the country among the most dynamic and promising markets for the development of e-commerce and fintech services in the world. The company is laying the technological foundation for the digitalization of the Uzbek economy and intends to maintain the growth rate by actively developing its own physical and IT infrastructure, as well as seamlessly integrating its services into the entire Uzum ecosystem.