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Image Credits:Alma / Alma co-founders, from left, Shuo Chen, Assel Tuleubayeva, and Aizada Marat
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Alma’s digital immigration application management.Image Credits:Alma
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When Aizada Marat proceed from New York to California in 2018 with her husband , KODIF co - founder and CEO Chyngyz Dzhumanazarov , she needed to sort out her immigration condition . That ’s when everything started going badly .
After graduating from Harvard , Marat displace to London because of in-migration issue . Now she was coming out to California with Dzhumanazarov , who had been admit to Stanford Business School , and to take a task offer at leading natural law firm Cooley .
But she did n’t realize that in-migration attorney can be very buyer - beware . Through a Google hunt she feel a lawyer in Palo Alto to help her with her visa . That turned out to be a forged move . Marat said the attorney gave her ill-timed advice about when she could file authorisation to work in California . That fault do her to not be able to wreak for more than a yr . She also could not leave the commonwealth .
“ I ’m a lawyer , so I listen to what lawyers say , ” Marat told TechCrunch . “ Unfortunately , listen to them was devastating because months later , I was still unable to work . I had a business offer from Cooley . ”
Marat did end up getting to work at Cooley for three years . And she went back to that immigration police force firm and showed them the fault they made with her . It also ignited an entrepreneurial fire in her .
After she left Cooley to play at McKinsey as a direction consultant , Marat kept coming back to that ugly immigration experience . So much so that she started thinking about why in-migration legal services were of hapless quality given the longsighted and complicated immigration process .
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She learned that immigration law is “ super break up , ” mean that 10 % of the grocery store is own by one jurisprudence firm while the other 90 % is shared among over 20,000 law house .
“ Very few big law firms have in-migration services today because it is mainly serving individuals , and those are small checks , ” Marat said . “ That ’s why , to get a talent visa green card , the majority of the clock time , hoi polloi can self - petition . They do n’t even need an employer . Cooley , in my case , would n’t really buy at visa , so I had to sort it out myself . ”
And when she think about what to do about it , Marat set out to bulge out her own company developing software to sell to immigration attorneys . The end was to help them deliver better services , so what happened to Marat would n’t take place again .
After four or five month of sell that computer software to five immigration law business firm , Marat and her squad made the decision to allow in-migration services straight . In October 2023 , they launchedAlma , an AI - powered sound tech startup that she depart with other immigrants , let in former Uber applied science manager Shuo Chen and former footfall product coach Assel Tuleubayeva .
The inauguration aims to simplify the visa procedure for applied scientist , founders and researchers by providing personal legal advisors , helping to speed up document processing and digitally organizing the full cognitive operation . And like other companies work in this sphere , includingMigrun , Boundless and Lawfully , Alma wants to fast - track outside endowment into America ’s tech ecosystem , Marat tell .
Marat pronounce Alma differs from some competitors by leveraging proprietary technology to provide gamey - caliber services quicker and employing its own immigration lawyer .
“ immigrant deserve high - quality services because so much depends on the immigration attorney that you find , ” Marat said . “ All the repetitive and mundane things that lawyers hate , we can automate so that attorney really focus on all clients and provide a really in effect scheme to get higher approval rates . ”
help to move the company forward is $ 5.1 million in combined seed and pre - seed funding that Alma of late raise . The company is backed by Bling Capital , Forerunner , Village Global , NFX , Conviction , MVP , NEA and Silkroad Innovation Hub . Much of the support will go toward new hire for ware and engineering development .
