Startup Story: The project that helps to make a purchase without the human factor

A section worthy of the attention of our subscribers “Startup Story” continues to acquaint readers with successful projects that participated in several start-up programs. Today IT Park guest is 25-year-old Shahzod Umirzakov, who was one of the first from Uzbekistan to participate in the “500Global” venture fund and attract an investment of $100,000.

Shahzod Umirzakov is the founder and co-founder of companies such as Unistar Innovation Technologies and T.A.S.S. Technologies. The T.A.S.S. Vision startup company provides traffic calculation services through neural networks. The company's clients include Basconi, Black Bear Coffee, GoodZone, and Texnomart brands. TASS Vision has already covered 60% of the Uzbekistan market, 6% of Kyrgyzstan, and 1.5% of the Kazakhstan market, working with large network retail companies.

Our hero recently won the 500Global venture fund and startup accelerator competition held in Georgia and received investment funds in the amount of 100 thousand US dollars. Also, Shahzod became the only foreign startup that won $10,000 through the Dar Lab competition T.A.S.S. Vision project held in Kazakhstan.

500 Global is a venture capital firm with more than $2.7 billion in assets under management that invests in founders building fast-growing technology companies. We focus on markets where technology, innovation, and capital can unlock long-term value and drive economic growth.

How did the idea of launching a startup come about?

In the 9th grade, our hero worked as a bus conductor during the summer holidays. It was at that moment, that he began to create a device, which would count and maintain passenger statistics to solve the problem of shortfalls on the part of conductors and drivers, and started to develop another vertical business to solve this problem, i.e. startup UniBus (later Passenger Transit).

Shahzod remembered the events of that time as follows:

“I remember making 55 calls a day from 10 am to 5-6 pm. When we launched the UniBus startup, we received orders from 12 bus depots. Each of them had no less than 10 buses.

Due to a large number of orders, we installed the device on only 35 buses. But they stopped working after 2 months.

The developers did not take into account the vibration coming from the bus, and we were in a hurry. After some time, the bus on which we installed the sensor had a malfunction and a dispute arose.  Although the money I received from my family members to start the business helped me for a while, then due to financial difficulties, our team broke up.

The next attempt was made in the project to support “Startup Initiatives”.  We tried to attract serious investors, not just for a good show.  As a business angel, we signed an agreement with Bakhtiyor Khasanov, the founder of the Bozor.uz platform.

We did not stop there and at the same time started working on the T.A.S.S. (Traffic Analysis System and Statistics) project.

T.A.S.S. is a system that uses artificial intelligence and automatically classifies visitors by gender and age.”

Through this project, our hero won 10 thousand US dollars as an international participant in the Dar Lab competition in Kazakhstan.

After that, we started participating in various contests to expand the scope of the project.

Recently, Georgia participated in the 500Global acceleration program and managed to attract $100,000 in investment for the T.A.S.S. Vision project.

At the moment, the team consists of 20 people, including 6 developers, 5 sales managers, 2 account managers, and an accountant, and the rest are in the support department.

The purpose of the project

We want to transform the traditional retail industry into a cashier-less system with unlimited technology.

The development of a system where people can get what they want, automatically or at a self-service checkout, without queuing, is sure to be popular.

Now we are helping B2B retail chain companies improve store efficiency and increase sales by 15%. Tomorrow we will help society get rid of queues at the checkout and always give interest-free credit for purchases of essentials with insufficient funds after our customers pass the scoring. This will help you not to go into debt or loans to buy the daily needs and necessities of people.

We want to transform the traditional retail industry forever with checkout-free technology, where people can grab whatever they want and without any queues at the checkout or self-service checkout automatically.

We have raised $317,000 in investment over the past 3 years and plan to raise another $500,000 in April 2023.

What is the state of development of startups in Uzbekistan?

In my opinion, the development of the start-up industry in Uzbekistan is still mainly at the level of generating ideas and their implementation.  But most importantly, all the conditions and benefits have been created to support startups.  It takes about 5-10 years for us to have a unicorn too.  We are also striving for this figure.  E-commerce is also developing, and it will grow strongly, the penetration of smartphones among the population is also growing rapidly, which will lead to a boom in B2C startups.

I would advise young entrepreneurs to first develop an idea from the ground up, and only after analyzing it thoroughly, put it into practice. Most importantly, you shouldn't take big risks in your non-specialist field.  Because it requires excessive funds and resources, it reduces the percentage of success.