Photo: пресс-служба National Founder Cup
Agritech startup Sator took first place at National Founder Cup Astana 2026. The final took place on October 31 at Nazarbayev University. The team is developing a wheat and barley yield forecasting service for farms in northern Kazakhstan.
Who won the prizes
Second place went to JUDE, an AI platform for designing custom orthotic helmets. According to the team, manual 3D modelling takes around 150 hours a month at a single clinic, while JUDE generates a CAD model that a technician checks and adjusts if needed.
Third place went to CR Drive, a system that monitors the health of commercial vehicle drivers. A wearable device tracks heart rate, SpO₂ and temperature, while a dispatcher views the readings in real time. The pricing model is a device costing 45,000 tenge and a monthly subscription of 3,000 tenge per driver.
PhytoShield from NIS in Pavlodar (vertical planting systems using insect-repellent plants for outdoor café seating areas) and VEYA (AI screening for glaucoma, retinopathy and cataracts using a retinal image taken with a smartphone attachment) received consolation prizes.
18 teams reached the final from around 97 applications. Disclosure: raem.kz editor-in-chief Raimbek Iskendirov served on the jury for the final. The prize from raem.kz is an article about the winning project.
В Астане агростартап Sator выиграл National Founder Cup 2026 · Фото: пресс-служба National Founder Cup
What the winner offers farms
Sator combines weather, soil and satellite observation data with the history of each field. According to the team’s presentation, its map, season records, fieldwork log and yield calculation features are already operational. The project has a working MVP and a contract with Kazrost Engineering.
Movsar Buzurtanov and Daniyal Nurlanov are developing the project. The idea emerged after DigitalAgroLeaders2026 and an internship at Eurasia Group: the team decided to use data collected by farm machinery and weather stations to forecast yields.
The proposed price is 350 tenge per hectare per year. For a farm covering 3 thousand hectares, that comes to 1.05 million tenge a year.
В Астане агростартап Sator выиграл National Founder Cup 2026 · Фото: пресс-служба National Founder Cup
Plans for the 2027 season
Over the winter, the team will test its models on new fields, separately for wheat and barley. In spring, it will bring the first farms on board, then compare forecasts with actual yields in summer and autumn. The accuracy of the forecasts under field conditions has yet to be confirmed.
The jury’s impressions
The projects were assessed by an expert jury that included Ayazhan Malik and Aigul Zakiryanova, chief of staff at Kazpost JSC (Qazpost).
“It was a very strong event, and the organisers did a great job. All the finalists did brilliantly: we have incredible young people building fantastic projects and startups. I wish them all success!” said jury member and raem.kz editor-in-chief Raimbek Iskendirov.
