Explore startups, investors, and ecosystem operators in Baku, Azerbaijan.
21 entries.
ABB Innovation Center is the corporate innovation arm of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (ABB Bank), founded in 2019. It runs multi-cohort incubation and hackathon programs for early-stage fintech startups, alongside ABB Tech Academy for developer education. The center focuses specifically on startups whose products can augment ABB Bank's digital and online services.
The Azerbaijan Innovation Center (AIM) is a 1,250 m² urban innovation hub on Atatürk Avenue, Baku, managed by the Innovation and Digital Development Agency (IDDA). Opened in October 2024, it provides 18 dedicated desks, development programs, networking events, and investor roadshow access for resident startups. IDDA reports supporting 750+ startups cumulatively across its programs, with ecosystem assets under management of approximately $15.6 million.
A large-scale international innovation trade show at Baku Expo Center, targeting 25,000+ visitors and 350+ exhibitors from 20+ countries. Useful for founders with a product to showcase and those seeking regional distribution or investment connections.
Birmarket (formerly Umico, founded 2019) is Azerbaijan's largest e-commerce marketplace, rebranded in July 2025 as part of PASHA Holding's Bir digital ecosystem. The platform offers over 500,000 products, express 2-hour delivery, 900+ pickup points, and integrated installment financing through Birbank. It operates across electronics, fashion, food, home, and multiple other retail categories.
Founded in November 2022 as Azerbaijan's first domestically domiciled venture capital fund, Caucasus Ventures was established by the Innovation and Digital Development Agency, PASHA Holding, and individual investors, with a statutory capital of 11.3 million AZN (~$6.6 million). Led by General Partner Mammad Karim, the fund targets post-seed to Series A startups in fintech, edtech, SaaS, cybersecurity, gaming, and e-commerce across Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Portfolio companies include Vivoo, Platma, Cognitiwe, Cargon, TASS Vision, and KLIPY. The fund is distinctive as the pioneer institutional VC vehicle in the Azerbaijani ecosystem, backed by state innovation infrastructure and private capital.
Fikir is a 24/7 coworking space operating two branches in Baku (Elmler and Ağ Şəhər districts), with a third location announced. It offers hot desks, dedicated desks, private offices, meeting rooms for up to 12 people, and an event hall for up to 70 people. The space targets freelancers, remote workers, and early-stage startup teams in Baku's growing tech community.
Glorri is a Baku-based HR operating system that unifies sourcing, applicant tracking, interview collaboration, offer management, and onboarding inside a single workflow, with an explicit focus on fast-growing teams in the Caucasus and broader CEE region that have outgrown spreadsheets but can't justify seat pricing from Workday or Greenhouse. The product layers company-branded career pages, a candidate CRM, scorecards, and automated stage progressions onto a mobile-first recruiter experience, and connects to local job boards where traditional global ATS vendors have poor coverage. Glorri gained regional visibility through the 500 Global Eurasia accelerator and is notable as one of the first Azerbaijani HR-tech startups trying to serve the entire hiring funnel rather than just the top-of-funnel sourcing problem.
The 20th-anniversary edition of the IEEE International Conference on Application of Information and Communication Technologies, hosted by ADA University in Baku with technical co-sponsorship from IEEE and its Azerbaijan chapters. The program spans 12 tracks and 80+ topics including data science, machine learning, cybersecurity and software engineering, drawing researchers, academics and industry practitioners from across the Caucasus, Central Asia and Europe.
INMerge is Azerbaijan's largest private-sector innovation summit, organized by PASHA Holding and staged in Baku as a two-day gathering that mixes keynotes from international tech leaders, corporate-innovation case studies, and a startup exhibition area with direct pitch access to regional investors. The program typically spans fintech, AI, sustainability, and the future of work, and uses the summit as a bridge between Azerbaijan's state-led digital agenda and the global startup community, with speakers from the likes of Google, Meta, and top European scaleups. For founders outside the Caucasus, INMerge is one of the most efficient ways to meet the main Azerbaijani corporates, sovereign-fund operators, and regional angels in a single trip. Tickets are typically in the EUR 100-250 range with discounted passes for early-stage founders.
Launched in October 2024 at the INMerge Innovation Summit in Baku, InMerge Ventures is Azerbaijan's second institutionally backed venture capital fund, with an authorized capital of $4 million contributed equally by the Innovation and Digital Development Agency, Azerbaijan Investment Company, PASHA Future Lab, and Trendyol Group. The fund focuses on digital technologies, e-commerce, and innovation-driven startups from the Caucasus, Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and the MENA region. Key founding figures include Inara Valiyeva (Chairwoman, Innovation and Digital Development Agency), Yasin Jalilov (Deputy Executive Director, Azerbaijan Investment Company), and Farrukh Aliyev (CEO, PASHA Future Lab). Its co-sponsorship by Trendyol Group, the Turkish e-commerce giant, gives it a distinctive cross-border e-commerce and marketplace angle.
Innoland (Innovations Center LLC) is an incubation and acceleration center established in November 2018 under the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations (ASAN). Over six years it has incubated 88 startups, accelerated 36 ventures, hosted 25 co-working residents, and organized more than 50 hackathons. It also runs an IT training academy and offers virtual residency for remote teams.
The closing showcase of Enterprise Azerbaijan's Startup School 4 programme, where graduating startups pitch to investors and corporates. Held in Baku alongside the TEI Forum 2026 (Trade, Export & Innovation), it gives founders exposure to global investors and nearly 500 companies for partnerships, customers and fundraising.
Lalafo is an AI-powered C2C classifieds marketplace founded in September 2015, operating Azerbaijan's largest buy-sell, job, and real estate search platform at lalafo.az. The platform covers categories including electronics, real estate, vehicles, clothing, and services. Lalafo operates localized versions in multiple countries including Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Greece, and Poland.
Lotfi Zadeh Technology Center (LTC) is a coworking space and shared-office provider with three branches across Baku, named after Azerbaijani-American mathematician Lotfi Zadeh. It offers hot desks, dedicated desks, private offices, meeting rooms (6–60 person capacity), and virtual office services. Weekly networking events are held for the resident startup and professional community.
m10 is a mobile financial super-app developed by PashaPay (part of PASHA Holding's Bir ecosystem), officially launched in July 2022. It offers domestic money transfers, international remittances, QR-code payments, BakıKart transit top-ups, and consumer credit up to 25,000 AZN. The platform serves 700,000 daily active users and has accumulated 2.5 million downloads, operating under the Central Bank of Azerbaijan's Regulatory Sandbox.
NEXUS (Nexus Lab) is a Baku-based climate-aviation software startup attacking one of the least-addressed parts of the flight emissions picture: non-CO2 warming, and in particular contrail-induced radiative forcing, which research suggests contributes roughly as much to aviation's near-term climate impact as its CO2 alone. The team combines atmospheric reanalysis data, probabilistic ice-supersaturation forecasting, and route/altitude optimization to produce flight-level recommendations airlines can apply without material fuel or schedule penalties. Its product is positioned for the European market specifically because of EU ETS and CORSIA-adjacent disclosure regimes that will increasingly price non-CO2 effects as the EU's non-CO2 monitoring rules phase in. Nexus Lab emerged through the 500 Global Eurasia program and is one of the more technically ambitious deep-tech bets to come out of the Azerbaijani ecosystem so far.
PASHA Holding is Azerbaijan's largest diversified conglomerate, and its technology ventures arm invests in and incubates digital businesses across fintech, insurtech, and enterprise software. Through subsidiaries like PASHA Bank and PASHA Insurance, the group has launched digital-first products including mobile banking platforms, automated insurance underwriting, and data analytics capabilities. The holding's tech initiatives are significant because they channel substantial domestic capital into digital infrastructure and create a corporate innovation layer that smaller Azerbaijani startups can plug into for distribution and enterprise validation.
Portmanat is Azerbaijan's first domestically developed electronic wallet, launched by Mobile Payment Solutions LLC in 2012. It enables users to pay utilities, mobile operators, internet providers, and merchants via mobile number-linked wallet accounts, QR codes, and card terminals. Portmanat is a founding member of the Azerbaijan Fintech Association and has bank integration partnerships with Bank Respublika and others.
SABAH.HUB is a private innovation center and accelerator founded in 2021 that supports startups at pre-seed and seed stages. It offers incubation, acceleration, and education tracks (SABAH.academy, SABAH.incubation, SABAH.lab) and has made 16 investments in its portfolio. It co-organizes the Baku Investment Day (Baku ID) conference in partnership with the World Economic Forum's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network.
Startup Azerbaijan is the national startup portal operated by the Small and Medium Business Development Agency (SMBDA) of Azerbaijan. The platform, relaunched in 2022, provides a startup registry, startup certification (with 3-year income-tax exemption), investor directory, job board, and access to incubation programs. It also hosts the national startup competition and Startup Days mentorship initiative.
Unibank is one of Azerbaijan's leading commercial banks and has invested heavily in digital transformation, launching mobile-first banking products, contactless payment infrastructure, and fintech partnerships that position it as the country's most digitally progressive financial institution. Its innovation arm develops API-based services, digital onboarding flows, and data-driven lending products aimed at modernizing how Azerbaijani consumers and SMEs interact with financial services. Unibank's fintech initiatives are important to the local ecosystem because they create integration opportunities for startups building on open banking and embedded finance rails.