Alma
Immigration is paperwork until it is personal. Then it is oxygen. In October 2023, Alma Immigration entered the market with a thesis forged in lived experience. Aizada Marat, Harvard-educated lawyer and former McKinsey operator from Kyrgyzstan, had navigated the system herself and nearly paid for flawed legal guidance with her career. Delays separated her from family. Friction became fuel. Alongside Assel Tuleubayeva, former product manager at Step, and Shuo Chen, Uber alum who joined in March 2024, Aizada Marat built Alma from the inside out. Three immigrants. More than a dozen visas collectively. They understood the stakes were not theoretical.
Within one month of founding, Alma secured $500K in pre-seed capital from Village Global, John Hale, and angels aligned with the mission. The momentum compounded. Combined pre-seed and seed funding reached $5.1M, with backing from Bling Capital, Forerunner, Village Global, NFX, Conviction, MVP, NEA, and Silkroad Innovation Hub. In the language of startup news, that investor bench signals more than belief. It signals category potential.
Alma initially built AI tools for law firms, tightening data loops and refining automation inside existing workflows. Then in 2024, the company pivoted deliberately to serve professionals and companies directly, owning the client relationship end to end. That move reframed Alma from vendor to infrastructure. When immigration determines whether a founder can build or an engineer can ship, proximity matters. Alma kept the pulse.
The operating model is attorney-led and AI-powered. Licensed immigration attorneys guide each case. Artificial intelligence organizes documentation, structures evidentiary narratives, and reduces repetitive drafting so legal judgment stays central. The focus is high-skilled pathways: O-1 talent visas, employment-based green cards, and work authorization for operators companies consider mission critical. Alma does not automate away responsibility. It compresses friction so strategy can breathe.
Timing is not accidental. Cross-border hiring has become structural, not experimental. Immigration is now a board-level variable in scaling companies. At the same time, AI systems are mature enough to manage rule-driven, document-heavy workflows with discipline. Alma sits precisely in that convergence. In the cadence of serious startup news, this is infrastructure meeting inevitability.
Traction reinforces the thesis. More than 300+ clients across B2C and B2B. Selection into the Google Cloud AI Accelerator. Exclusive immigration law partner for Village Global’s Velocity accelerator, embedding Alma at the earliest stages of company formation. That is not noise. That is ecosystem integration.
Aizada Marat, Assel Tuleubayeva, and Shuo Chen are not building a boutique firm. They are constructing rails for global talent mobility. As immigration becomes operational infrastructure rather than legal afterthought, Alma positions itself at the intersection of law, AI, and ambition. In a market where talent is borderless but regulation is not, this is the kind of company that keeps showing up in serious startup news for a reason.