Sturgeon Capital

London-based VC investing in emerging market startups, particularly in the fintech, B2B, and marketplace sectors, covering funding rounds from Seed to Series B.

Analyst

Exponential

Acquired by DataBoom. 
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- Launched a remote career accelerator for software engineers to land in big tech companies,
- Took the product to GA, secure profitability within the first year/batch with the PSA business model,
- Boosted the growth rate of subsequent career accelerator batches by 5 times,
- Expanded the product line with the new product Exp Mocks (online coaching marketplace), where you can get one-on-one interview coaching sessions from ex-MAANG software engineers.

Co-Founder

Opensee

Designed and led the development of internal ETL tool from scratch as a solo product manager, enabling the launch of a new B2B SaaS solution for risk management which
- Reduced onboarding time from 3 months to 1 week for the clients 
- Led to increased clients and 2.5x ARR increase

Product Manager, B2B Fintech SaaS

Squares App

Led the development, resolving ux issues that increased usabily by 19% of the platform which helps users to find the short term rental unique venues in Kazakhstan.

Product Manager, PropTech Marketplace

L'accent

--- AI-based personalization engine for clothing marketplaces ---
Collaborating with top AI researchers from the University of Tsukuba and other talented engineers, we achieved significant user growth and Forbes recognition within a short timeframe. However, in retrospect, I've come to acknowledge my mistakes as a solo founder and recognize that a different leadership approach was needed to ensure the continued success of 'L'accent' in this specific domain.

Founder, CEO

Google

- Started as a new graduate software engineer
- Worked on Chrome on iOS (C++, Objective C)
- Implemented a/b testing experiments for Chrome's searchbox to reduce the time spent with the popups in the omnibox, and other features like dark mode in Chrome
- Launched and led a peer-to-peer mentoring program "Power Circles" as a Head at Google Paris

Software Engineer

BI Group - строительный холдинг Казахстана

Led strategic partnership initiatives with Plug and Play, a global innovation platform, positioning BI Group as the pioneering partner from Kazakhstan.

Worked on Corporate Innovation Program deals for startups and the biggest construction company in Central Asia, BI Group.
Notable deals: Tastamat, ReKassa, SmartRemont.

Analyst, VC and Corporate Innovation

Summer student program for software engineers at Google London

Student Training in Engineering Program

product manager | ex-google | forbes under 30

- World Semifinalist in ICPC (Competative Programming) 
- Gold Medalist at Eurasian Programming Contest
- Published 4 Research papers in Robotics and Machine Learning 
- Speaker at IEEE ICRA, IEEE HRI, IEEE ICSR conferences in USA, Japan, Singapore
- ex-Google Software engineer (Chrome team)
- an Exited Founder (acquisition of an EdTech Marketplace)
- Product Management experience (B2B Fintech, PropTech Marketplace, FashionTech & AI)
- Now in Emerging Markets Venture Capital (had a previous experience in VC and Corporate Innovation)

I'll be speaking at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Health Systems Innovation Lab ✨ 

This one is personal. I've spent my career on both sides of the table — first as a founder who built and exited a company, and now as an investor backing founders across Central Asia and other frontier markets.

The question I keep coming back to: why do so many talented, high-traction founders from non-obvious markets struggle to raise internationally — not because their business isn't good, but because their market is misunderstood. That's the gap I want to help close.

I'll cover what global VCs actually look for, how to frame your story, your market, and your traction — and how to translate local momentum into global fundability.

Thank you to the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab team, Kazakhstan AI Safety Institute, and Devs.kz for making this happen.


If you're a founder building in Central Asia or any frontier market — this one's for you 🌍

Nazerke Kalidolda

Founder turned VC | Forbes u30 | ex-Google | ICPC NEERC Finalist

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