Nabi Muratbek is the co-founder of Kwaaka, a service that sends delivery-platform orders into restaurant point-of-sale systems. He launched the business with Maksat Kadyrov in spring 2022 after closing an earlier recruitment startup. In May 2024, Kwaaka received a further $100,000 from MOST Ventures to support product development and expansion. (digitalbusiness.kz, forbes.kz, bluescreen.kz)
Who Nabi Muratbek is
At Kwaaka, Muratbek took responsibility for fundraising and business development. Kadyrov, who previously worked as an engineer at LinkedIn, led the technology side. This division allowed the founders to work on integrations while pursuing restaurant customers and investment. Muratbek explained in a 2023 interview that he had deliberately sought a partner with experience at a major international technology company. (digitalbusiness.kz)
The business addresses a routine restaurant task. A cashier receives an order through a delivery platform and manually enters it into the restaurant’s own system. Working with several platforms means monitoring several interfaces. Kwaaka connects these incoming orders to the systems used inside the restaurant. The Kwaaka Startup Radar profile provides further company context. (kapital.kz)
Nabi Muratbek’s education and early projects
Muratbek studied at Nazarbayev University and started working while still a student. In his first year, he joined Choco as a data scientist; in his second, he moved to KPMG as a machine learning engineer. He later worked with fellow students on Recruitment.ai, a product intended to automate parts of recruitment. (digitalbusiness.kz)
The team tried to combine CV screening, video-interview analysis and games for assessing applicants’ skills. It subsequently renamed the project Onayjumys and focused on frontline recruitment. Early sales remained difficult, funding ran out and the founders closed the service. Looking back, Muratbek attributed the failure partly to the team’s attachment to its original concept. (digitalbusiness.kz)
The experience involved hiring, discussions with corporate customers, legal work and managing cash shortages. In his next venture, Muratbek put greater emphasis on checking demand before development. Conversations with restaurant cashiers and administrators eventually pointed him towards the problem of disconnected ordering systems. (digitalbusiness.kz)
Building Kwaaka with restaurants
Work on Kwaaka began in spring 2022. Muratbek told Kapital.kz that the first order passed through the system on 2 May. Early partners included Farsh and Rumi, which gave the team access to restaurants where it could test the integration during everyday operations. (kapital.kz)
Muratbek spent time working as a cashier himself. He saw how much repeated data entry an order required and how mistakes could affect items or customer comments. This helped the founders describe their service in practical terms: fewer manual steps, a consolidated order flow and a more predictable process for restaurant employees. (digitalbusiness.kz)
Delivery-platform integrations required their own negotiations. The platforms were already hearing requests from restaurants for connections to point-of-sale systems, creating an opportunity for a specialist provider. Kwaaka developed integrations with Glovo, Wolt and Yandex Eats. Discussions with international offices took time, while working examples from the first restaurant customers helped demonstrate the service’s usefulness. (digitalbusiness.kz)
The product and its regional reach
Kwaaka charges restaurants a subscription for each connected location. Alongside order transfer, its functions include menu updates, unavailable-item lists and information about delivery channels. In an interview with Weproject, the founders described their objective as reducing errors and the time needed to process delivery orders. (weproject.media, forbes.kz)
For a restaurant chain, keeping information consistent across systems is an operational concern. An unavailable dish needs to be removed from ordering channels promptly, while a new order needs to reach staff without being typed in again. Kwaaka’s product centres on connecting the tools a restaurant already uses. RAEM covers this market in its overview of three restaurant services from Kazakhstan. (forbes.kz)
In March 2024, Forbes Kazakhstan reported that Kwaaka had connected 1,200 restaurants across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Armenia. The founders were also preparing to enter Georgia. These figures describe the business at that point: expansion already involved several countries, restaurant groups and local partners. (forbes.kz)
Investment and development plans
Kwaaka announced $235,000 in funding in May 2023. Reported investors included Big Sky Capital, Murat Abdrakhmanov, Arman Shokparov and MOST Ventures. According to the founders’ Forbes interview, a subsequent $600,000 round closed in July 2023. Funding supported development of the product and expansion of the business. (digitalbusiness.kz, forbes.kz)
MOST Ventures invested another $100,000 in May 2024. The announcement identified new products, team development and expansion in Uzbekistan and Georgia as areas of work. For Muratbek, this continued the approach behind Kwaaka: identify a recurring operational problem and build a service that restaurants in different markets can adopt. (bluescreen.kz)
Timeline
- May 2022 — Kwaaka processed its first order and began operating.
- February 2023 — the company won Astana Hub Battle at Digital Almaty and a $10,000 prize.
- May 2023 — Kwaaka announced $235,000 in funding.
- July 2023 — the founders closed a $600,000 round.
- May 2024 — MOST Ventures provided a further $100,000. (kapital.kz, digitalbusiness.kz, forbes.kz, bluescreen.kz)
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Kwaaka?
Nabi Muratbek and Maksat Kadyrov founded the company. Muratbek focused on business development and fundraising, while Kadyrov led technology. (digitalbusiness.kz)
Where did Nabi Muratbek study?
He studied at Nazarbayev University while also working at Choco and KPMG. (digitalbusiness.kz)
What does Kwaaka do?
It sends delivery-platform orders into restaurant point-of-sale systems and helps manage menus and unavailable-item lists. (forbes.kz)
What funding has Kwaaka received?
Reported funding includes $235,000 announced in May 2023, a $600,000 round closed in July 2023 and a further $100,000 from MOST Ventures in May 2024. (digitalbusiness.kz, forbes.kz, bluescreen.kz)
