FROM LOCAL STARTUP TO GLOBAL ALLIANCES AND STANFORD CLASSROOMS
For a long time, the best new ideas were believed to come from Silicon Valley. However, origin no longer determines potential. Freedom Holding Corp., a fintech company with an unconventional geographic footprint that grew out of Kazakhstan’s developing market, has built a business that has caught the eye of global IT giants. Its model is studied at Stanford’s top-ranked business school.
Freedom Holding has drawn the attention of Stanford academics as an example of how bold ambition and unconventional thinking can deliver world-class solutions in a short time.
Humble Beginning
On October 15, 2019, Freedom Holding Corp. made history by becoming the first financial company from the CIS region to list on a major U.S. exchange, NASDAQ. Freedom started as a small group of financial firms operating across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including a bank, a broker, and a trading platform serving just over 150,000 clients.
Over time, the group expanded into insurance, lifestyle, and telecom, all integrated into a single mobile SuperApp. Today, Freedom Holding’s unique ecosystem serves over 11 million users, including partners, with its core businesses attracting more than 7 million users.
On the Fast Track
In just over five years, Freedom Holding’s stock has grown more than tenfold. The company’s value went from about $800 million at its IPO to over $8 billion today, reaching $11.76 billion in August 2025.
Founder and CEO Timur Turlov became a billionaire along the way. With over $6 billion in net worth, he’s on Forbes’ global billionaire list, in the top 10 of ‘40 Under 40’ self-made billionaires, and one of Kazakhstan’s richest business leaders.
All of this was made possible by Freedom’s growth and international recognition.
Winning Over the Market
At the end of May 2025, Freedom Holding Corp. was selected for inclusion in the Russell 3000 Index – one of the most prestigious and respected market benchmarks among professional investors. This reflected sustained business growth and an increasing presence in global financial markets. In June, the company’s shares were also added to the First Trust Financials AlphaDEX Fund (FXO), signaling broad recognition and confidence worldwide.
Freedom has drawn some of the world’s leading investors, including State Street, Morgan Stanley, Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase, Millennium Management, and Citadel Advisors. In summer 2025, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, boosted its stake and became Freedom’s biggest institutional investor.
Since summer 2025, Freedom’s story has also been studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business. The case explores the company’s journey from a regional financial firm to a global digital ecosystem, building partnerships with some of the world’s largest tech giants.
Teaming Up with Giants
In Kazakhstan, Freedom Holding Corp. is involved in several major joint projects with leading global business players. Together with China Mobile International, the group is building Akashi Data Center, the largest in Central Asia, designed to the highest Tier IV reliability standards. At the same time, the holding is developing Freedom Cloud in Almaty – a cloud platform, which has already attracted the interest of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
On top of that, Freedom Holding is working with Nvidia to establish a sovereign artificial intelligence hub in Kazakhstan. The company is also piloting the ChatGPT Edu project in the country in partnership with OpenAI. Vodafone Group, one of the world’s largest telecom operators, has become a strategic partner for Freedom’s telecom division, Freedom Telecom. Additionally, in collaboration with UnionPay, Freedom is developing a settlement system for e-commerce and wholesale.
These achievements just confirm Timur Turlov’s vision that world-class products can be developed in Astana or Almaty, not just in Silicon Valley. “We need to stop assuming that greatness only exists abroad,” he says. “There’s no playbook for digital development – we’re figuring it out as we go and shaping a new way people live in a digital world. Our path has put us right at the forefront. And maybe for the first time in a long time, it’s not Kazakhstan learning from others – the world is watching what we’re building here,” Turlov concludes.
