Comfi recognized as "Scale-up of the year" at Baku ID 2026
Dubai, UAE, [28 September, 2026]: Comfi has been named "Scale-up of the year" at Baku ID 2026, winning the event's Nexus Award. The category is voted on by the public and a panel of investment judges, and goes to the scale-up with the strongest traction in 2026. Comfi was selected from more than 800 applicants.
The award capped two busy days for Comfi at the event. Co-founder and COO Alisher Akbarov spoke on the panel "Create What You Wish Existed on the Global Stage: Diaspora Founder Success Stories" and gave a keynote on building fintech from 0 to 1 in an emerging market.
"We built Comfi to solve something bigger than one market, so being recognized on a global stage like this really matters," said Alisher Akbarov, Co-founder and COO of Comfi. "It tells us the problem we're chasing resonates well beyond our home market. Grateful to the judges and everyone who voted. This one's for the team."
The conversations on stage
In his keynote, Alisher described what it takes to go from 0 to 1 in a market where the playbook doesn't exist yet. Capital alone rarely closes the gap. Founders need at least one real edge: their own money to buy a runway, a distribution partner who opens doors from day one, or insider knowledge of the problem that lets them skip the dead ends everyone else hits.
On the diaspora panel, Alisher was joined by Abdullo Kurbanov, Co-founder of Ayan and former CEO of Alif Bank, one of Tajikistan's first neobanks; Iako Jikia, Co-founder & CEO of Helio AI; and Melis Abacioglu, Founder and CEO of Wellbees. Abbas Kazmi of SABAH.fund moderated. The discussion covered building across borders, entering new markets and turning early ideas into global businesses.
A packed room
The audience brought together founders, investors, startup operators and the wider regional tech community, all building in fast-growing markets that are hard to build in. Other founders in the room included Muhammad Salman Anjum of InvoiceMate.
Winning Scale-up of the year against more than 800 applicants is a strong signal that Comfi's approach is working. That approach is to build a real business, find your unfair advantages, and put the team's insider knowledge of the problem to work. Comfi thanks Baku ID and SABAH.city for bringing this community together.
About Comfi
Comfi is a B2B embedded finance platform for SMEs across the UAE and GCC. Comfi pays suppliers upfront against their invoices, while their business customers get up to 90 days to pay. By building flexible payment terms directly into B2B transactions, Comfi helps businesses close working capital gaps, cut payment delays and keep cash moving through their supply chains. Learn more at comfi.ai.
Media contact: Nikhil Wadhwa, Brand Manager, nikhil@comfi.ai
