BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 1. PASHA Holding is
sourcing startups not only in Azerbaijan but across the region and
matching them with the specific needs of companies in its
portfolio, Tugra Musayeva, head of innovation at PASHA Financial
Holding, said at the CAMCA Regional Forum 2026 in Baku today,
Trend's correspondent
reports from the event.


She made the remarks during the “Regional Synergies: Designing
the Next Digital Silk Road” session.


According to Musayeva, the group has a program under which its
companies work with startups and implement technological solutions
through pilot projects. A successful pilot at one company can serve
as a recommendation for other companies within the group.


“We source startups from the region based on the needs of our
companies in banking, insurance, e-commerce and other areas. When a
pilot is successful at one company, the solution is passed on to
other companies in the group. They trust each other’s experience:
if a solution has worked for one company, it is likely to help
another as well. Today, this has become common practice within the
group,” Musayeva said.


“The local market is not enough, so we look for solutions at the
regional level. For a startup, this provides something that is most
difficult to obtain: the first customer in a new market. Instead of
entering a new country, building relationships from scratch and
spending a year looking for the first customer, it gets an entry
point through our group,” she said.


INMerge VC's regional investment portfolio


Speaking about investments, Musayeva discussed the work of
venture capital fund INMerge VC, which began investing in January
this year. The fund has made six investments to date, with its
portfolio regional from the outset, comprising startups from
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Türkiye.


“We are seeing more and more founders addressing regional rather
than local challenges. The advantage of the region is that the
problems are very similar: payments and transfers, small-business
lending and connecting customers to digital financial services. If
a founder has found a technical solution that can be easily scaled
and does not need to build a product from scratch to enter, for
example, Azerbaijan from Uzbekistan, we are immediately
interested,” Musayeva said.







According to her, INMerge can offer startups more than capital,
including a pilot project, a first customer and access to the
Azerbaijani market through the group's companies.


INMerge as a regional platform


Musayeva also spoke about the role of the INMerge Innovation
Summit, which PASHA Holding is developing as a regional platform
for government bodies, corporations, startups and investors from
the Caucasus, Central Asia and neighboring regions.


According to her, INMerge has expanded beyond Azerbaijan, with
events held in Istanbul, Tashkent and Berlin. The main summit will
take place in Baku on November 30 and December 1, 2026.


“INMerge is a place where regional demand for innovation meets
supply. Large companies in the region still look for startups
individually, each in its own country. We want them to share their
challenges, recognize each other’s pilots and invest together,” she
said.


Musayeva stressed that a startup scales across the region not
only because its technology is scalable.


“It scales when the ecosystem reduces the cost of entering the
next market. The goal is not simply to connect our countries
through digital channels, but to make the region work as a single
market for innovation,” she said.