IT Park Ventures Puts $1M Into UK Islamic Fintech Ayan Capital

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — A Central Asian venture fund has placed a $1 million bet on a British Islamic fintech built by the team behind one of the region's most recognized financial platforms.

IT Park Ventures has participated in a $4 million funding round for Ayan Capital, a UK-registered Islamic fintech startup, contributing $1 million alongside international investors from the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Ayan Capital was founded by Abdullo Kurbanov, Firdavs Mirzoev, and Zuhursho Rakhmatulloyev — the entrepreneurs previously behind Alif, the fintech project that gained significant traction across Central Asia. The company operates in the Islamic financial services segment, offering fully digital halal vehicle financing for both individual and business clients, powered by proprietary automated scoring and underwriting technology. Its product suite also includes Ayan Pay, debit cards, Islamic deposits, and instalment services. The company holds a licence from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, placing it among the more rigorously regulated players in the global fintech landscape.

The fresh capital will be directed toward scaling operations, advancing technology solutions, and expanding the team — with particular emphasis on growing the engineering workforce, a significant portion of which is already based in Uzbekistan. IT Park Ventures specified that its portion of the investment will focus on developing AI-powered scoring tools and automating the vehicle financing process, as well as deepening the Uzbekistan-based development team.

The strategic horizon for Ayan Capital is ambitious: the company has stated its intention to evolve into a full-scale digital neobank in the United Kingdom, with plans to pursue a banking licence and build a comprehensive Islamic financial ecosystem for the Western market.

For IT Park Ventures, the deal is consistent with a stated fund priority of backing companies with global potential and strong technology teams, while simultaneously developing engineering capacity inside Uzbekistan. The investment positions the fund at the intersection of two fast-growing sectors — Islamic finance and AI-driven lending automation — within one of the world's most demanding regulatory environments.