Alexander Mashrabov, co-owner and CEO of Kazakh unicorn Higgsfield, has received Kazakh citizenship. This was announced in a blog post by Zhaslan Madiyev, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development. “Kazakhstan has one more billionaire!.. We want people creating the technologies of the future to make their plans with Kazakhstan,” he wrote, noting that the president signed the relevant decree on October 30.
A Higgsfield spokesperson told Bloomberg that the businessman had already applied to renounce his Russian citizenship. Kazakhstan’s Constitution prohibits dual citizenship. However, Article 17 of the Law “On Citizenship of the Republic of Kazakhstan” states that those granted citizenship for special merits may renounce another citizenship later, provided they immediately submit a notarized written application renouncing their foreign passport.
Details
Alexander (Alex) Mashrabov was born and raised in Russia; his father is from Uzbekistan. Mashrabov attended a physics and mathematics lyceum in Chelyabinsk, then graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). While studying, he worked at Yandex as a machine learning engineer. In 2018, Mashrabov and his childhood friend Grigory Tkachenko launched AI Factory, a platform that adds animation to photos and videos featuring human faces. In January 2020, the US company Snap Inc., which owns the Snapchat messaging app, bought the startup for $166 million. Mashrabov then moved to the US; in an interview, he said it had been his dream since childhood. In 2023, Mashrabov co-founded Higgsfield with Kazakhstan-born Yerzat Dulat. The company now has entities both in the Astana International Financial Centre (Higgsfield Ltd.) and in Delaware, US (Higgsfield Inc.).
The equity stakes held by the co-founders have not been officially disclosed. In August 2026, Forbes Russia wrote, citing expert estimates, that Mashrabov could join the ranks of billionaires, offering several possible estimates of his net worth. Higgsfield denied the report without providing further details.
Context
Higgsfield is a Kazakhstani startup developing a platform for creating videos with artificial intelligence. At the end of October, it was reported that the company had received investment from NVIDIA, the world’s largest chipmaker, and TCV, a fund that previously invested in Netflix, Spotify, and ByteDance. The deal was an extension of the Series B round, which closed in August at $400 million and valued the company at $5.4 billion. The company did not disclose the size or valuation of the latest tranche. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang personally announced the investment in Higgsfield during a visit to Kazakhstan two weeks ago.
In August 2025, Yerzat Dulat said he intended to grow the company to the point of an IPO. Since then, Higgsfield has completed three private-placement rounds, but no official announcements about going public have followed.
In early September 2026, venture capital fund Frontline One Capital, which had said it was participating in Higgsfield’s investment, announced that the IPO would take place in late 2027 or early 2028. Deloitte has already been hired as auditor in preparation, and Goldman Sachs is in talks to organize the offering. According to the authors, Higgsfield’s valuation at the time of the offering could exceed $10 billion.
Soon after, the Russian investment holding company Finam offered its clients the opportunity to participate in a Higgsfield pre-IPO. Higgsfield, in turn, said that it “had not authorized, participated in, or approved any such offer. Transactions made without Higgsfield’s approval are not recognized by the company and “will not be registered upon a liquidity event.”