Higgsfield becomes the first unicorn in Kazakhstan’s history

Kazakhstani startup Higgsfield AI has officially achieved unicorn status. Co-founder Alex Mashrabov announced that the company’s valuation has surpassed $1 billion. This marks the first time a technology project from Kazakhstan has reached this level.

“Higgsfield crossed a run rate revenue of $50 million and officially became the first Kazakhstani unicorn. This happened unexpectedly — no one in the country has been able to achieve this over the past 15 years. Before that, we had already received investments from leading global funds, including Menlo Ventures, which also backed Anthropic. We built the first Kazakhstani unicorn,” said Mashrabov.

From idea to billion-dollar valuation

Higgsfield AI was founded by two people — AI researcher Yerzat Dulat and former head of Generative AI at Snap Inc, Alex Mashrabov. They launched the project less than two years ago with the goal of making generative video as accessible as MidJourney made image generation.

Today, Higgsfield’s products allow users to create video content from text prompts. What once required a budget, a film crew, and time for brands and bloggers can now be done in minutes. The service already has millions of users worldwide, with major brands and creators among its clients.

Отказ от сделки с Meta

In 2024, Higgsfield attracted the attention of major industry players. Meta was looking for a promising startup in generative video and approached the Kazakhstani team directly.

“Mark Zuckerberg wanted to acquire an AI startup focused on video generation. Since Higgsfield had already become a leader in social media reach by that point, we became his number one candidate. Top managers from Meta reached out to us with a concrete offer. I cannot disclose the exact figures, but we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. We spent several weeks discussing it with the team before giving an answer. Higgsfield is still a young company, less than two years old. We decided to turn down the deal,” said Higgsfield co-founder Yerzat Dulat.

A milestone for the industry

Higgsfield has become the first company from Kazakhstan valued at over $1 billion. Founded less than two years ago, it now operates on the global generative video market with millions of users. There are only about 1,500 unicorns worldwide, and having a Kazakhstani project among them is a significant milestone.