Uzum Valuation Jumps to $2.3 Billion on $130 Million Raise as It Expands Uzbekistan’s Digital Ecosystem

Uzum, Uzbekistan’s leading digital ecosystem spanning e‑commerce, banking, and payments, saw a busy week of funding milestones, ecosystem expansion, and community-focused outreach. This recap reviews Uzum’s latest capital raise, operational performance, strategic partnerships, and culturally aligned engagement initiatives.

The most material development was Uzum’s completion of a more than $130 million strategic investment round, led by sovereign investors from the Sultanate of Oman alongside existing backers VR Capital, Tencent, and FinSight Ventures. The financing, totaling about $131.5 million across equity and convertible instruments, lifted the company’s valuation to $2.3 billion, roughly 53% higher than seven months earlier.

Management plans to direct the new capital into its core verticals of e‑commerce, digital banking, and payment services, with a strong focus on technology and logistics infrastructure. Uzum’s ecosystem, built around Uzum Market, Uzum Bank, Uzum Nasiya consumer lending, and food delivery service Uzum Tezkor, now reaches around 20 million users, or more than half of Uzbekistan’s adult population.

Operational metrics underscore the scale of the platform’s growth, with payment volume reaching about $11 billion in 2025 and annual transacting users rising to 4.6 million from roughly 3 million a year earlier. Revenue climbed to $691 million in 2025 from $505 million in 2024, while net income increased to $176 million from $150 million, and the marketplace achieved EBITDA profitability after three years of operation.

Fintech remains Uzum’s primary profit driver, as Uzum Bank served about 5 million customers in 2025 and issued 4.1 million debit cards, representing around half of all cards nationwide. The unsecured loan book reached approximately $400 million and total credit volume hit $1.2 billion, with management targeting a further 5 million banking customers over the coming year.

To bolster its value proposition, Uzum has opened cross‑border commerce, enabling Uzbek shoppers to buy from overseas sellers in markets such as Turkey and China and adding nearly 200 million SKUs to complement about 1.5 million local products. The company is also undertaking a major logistics expansion, planning to double its roughly 1,500 pickup points to 3,000 by 2026 and expand warehouse space from 125,000 to about 500,000 square meters.

On the talent and innovation front, Uzum signed a memorandum of cooperation with Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent to support joint initiatives in education and information technology. The partnership envisions student internships, co‑developed educational programs, and backing for student startups and research projects, potentially deepening the company’s access to skilled engineers and early-stage innovation.

Uzum also emphasized its role in inclusive entrepreneurship, noting that more than one third of sellers on Uzum Market are women and partnering with initiatives such as the Hamroh project and the UNDP. These programs have provided training in business skills, marketplace operations, digital literacy, and financial education to more than 2,100 women, strengthening the platform’s supply base and aligning with ESG and inclusion priorities.

In addition, Uzum used LinkedIn to share culturally resonant greetings for the Navruz and Ramadan Hayit holidays, offering messages in multiple languages and stressing themes of happiness, prosperity, health, and community. While these posts do not add financial or operational data, they reinforce the company’s cultural alignment and brand affinity in its predominantly Muslim core market.

Taken together, the week highlighted Uzum’s combination of strong investor support, accelerating financial performance, strategic ecosystem investments, and community-focused initiatives, reinforcing its position at the center of Uzbekistan’s digital economy and supporting its longer-term capital-market ambitions.