Vltava Fund: Kaspi.kz ($KSPI) Investment Case

In its Q2 2026 investor letter, Vltava Fund disclosed a new position in Kaspi.kz ($KSPI), a Kazakhstan-based digital ecosystem the firm has monitored closely for about six years before finally initiating a purchase. Vltava Fund views Kaspi as an exceptional global example of a “super-app,” combining payments, e-commerce, consumer finance, merchant services, travel, advertising, and select government services into a single application. Following its earlier investment in Mexican company Quálitas Controladora, the firm describes Kaspi as its second position in emerging markets, with the decisive catalyst being a business trip founder Daniel Gladiš took to Kazakhstan to lead a workshop at Narxoz University Business School.

Investment Highlight: Kaspi.kz ($KSPI)

Business Overview

• Vltava Fund describes Kaspi as neither simply a bank, a payment app, nor an online store, but a deeply integrated infrastructure of everyday economic life in Kazakhstan
• The firm notes Kaspi reports more than 25 million consumers and 900,000 merchants across Kazakhstan and Turkey, the latter reach coming via its majority stake in online retail portal Hepsiburada
• The firm highlights an average usage level of 77 transactions per month per active customer in Kazakhstan, which it characterizes as an engagement level that even many global platforms might envy

Market Position and Network Effects

• Vltava Fund attributes Kaspi’s dominant position not only to scale but to network effects among consumers, merchants, and financial products, where more customer usage increases merchant importance and vice versa
• The firm views this interdependence as creating an ecosystem that, much like Visa’s, is very difficult to replicate

Business Model Sophistication

• The firm describes Kaspi’s ability to monetize a single customer relationship across payments, commercial transactions, credit products, merchant services, advertising, and logistics as a core strength
• From a business perspective, Vltava Fund likens the platform to a combination of Visa, PayPal, Amazon, Shopify, a bank, and a buy-now-pay-later provider, backed by exceptionally strong local presence in a single market
• The firm notes Kaspi’s profitability is very high, and that even Visa — which Vltava Fund also holds and regards highly — cannot match Kaspi’s return on capital

Investment Rationale and Timing

• Vltava Fund states it came close to buying Kaspi shares on several prior occasions over roughly six years of observation but had not previously acted
• The firm attributes its decision to a first-hand experience with the Kaspi app during a business trip to Kazakhstan, describing the experience as one that “literally took my breath away” and calling the app “a generation ahead” of what the firm is used to in the Western world
• Vltava Fund also cites a positive overall impression of Kazakhstan itself, combined with what it views as significant undervaluation of Kaspi’s shares, as the basis for the purchase

Vltava Fund views Kaspi.kz as a rare, well-known but still undervalued opportunity in emerging markets — a dominant, highly profitable super-app with network effects the firm considers very difficult to replicate. The firm’s decision to finally invest, after years of observation, was driven by direct exposure to the platform’s real-world usage combined with valuation the firm considered attractive.

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