Most people experience Qatar’s summer by looking for shade. For Nikita, however, the season tells a very different story.
More than a decade ago, long before AYOLA was established in Qatar, co-founder Nikita Makhalin began questioning one of the biggest assumptions behind modern vertical farming. While much of the industry relied heavily on artificial lighting to grow crops indoors, he wondered whether there was a simpler, more sustainable approach. If sunlight was already available, why depend so heavily on electricity?
Rather than accepting conventional thinking, Nikita decided to test a different idea. The first prototype wasn’t built in a laboratory but on an apartment balcony, where he worked alongside his father and uncle using little more than plastic panels, rails and chains. The experiment proved the concept could work, giving the family the confidence to build their first large-scale growing system spanning 1,000 square metres.
The bigger challenge, however, was proving that the technology itself could succeed.
“When we invited agronomists and university specialists to look at our system, they told us they didn’t know how it would work,” Nikita recalls. “They could explain conventional systems, but ours was completely different.”
Without an established model to follow, the team had to create one themselves. Every improvement revealed another challenge, and every solution uncovered another opportunity to refine the system.
“There was a challenge every day,” Nikita says. “You fix one thing, and the next day you discover another.”
Developing the technology also meant navigating regulatory requirements that hadn’t been designed for a system like theirs. Yet for Nikita, those years weren’t defined by setbacks but by continuous learning. Every obstacle became another step towards improving the idea.
Turning Heat into Opportunity
As AYOLA evolved, so did its journey. The company relocated from Russia to Türkiye before eventually establishing its presence in Qatar. Each move brought new challenges, but it also brought the team closer to discovering something unexpected: the environment their technology had been searching for all along.
For many people, Qatar’s intense summer heat represents one of agriculture’s biggest challenges. For AYOLA, it became one of its greatest competitive advantages.
The hotter it is, the happier I am.
Rather than fighting the climate, AYOLA has learned to work with it. During the cooler months, crops are grown under favourable conditions. When summer arrives, the same intense heat becomes a natural resource for drying produce. What can take weeks elsewhere can be achieved in just a matter of days under Qatar’s summer sun.
“It’s the best place on Earth,” Nikita says. “That’s why we’re here.”
For AYOLA, Qatar isn’t simply where the company operates today. It’s where years of experimentation and unconventional thinking finally found their ideal environment.
Designing Agriculture Around People
At the heart of AYOLA’s approach is automation, but not for the reasons many people might expect. For Nikita, automation has never been about replacing people. Instead, it’s about making agriculture more accessible.
Instead of fixed growing racks, AYOLA’s automated system continuously transports crops through the growing environment, maximising exposure to natural sunlight before delivering them directly to workers for monitoring and harvesting.
“The field comes to the person,” Nikita explains.
By reducing the physical effort required to monitor, harvest and manage production, the system improves efficiency while creating opportunities for older people and people with disabilities to take on roles that might otherwise be physically demanding.
“It’s possible to give jobs to people with disabilities or older people,” he says. “They don’t need to walk across the field or bend down all day. They can stay where they are, and the plants come to them.”
That philosophy extends beyond automation. By maximising the use of natural sunlight and using water more efficiently than conventional farming methods, AYOLA aims to build agricultural systems that are not only more sustainable, but also better suited to the realities of a changing world.
Still Building
Today, AYOLA’s flagship product is sun-dried tomatoes made from locally sourced produce and naturally dried using Qatar’s climate. Yet for Nikita, the product is only one milestone in a much longer journey.
After more than a decade of research, AYOLA has secured patents in multiple countries, including the United States, Singapore, and Russia, while continuing to refine its technology and develop new value-added food products.
Now part of the QSTP’s Incubation Program, AYOLA is entering its next chapter. For Nikita, joining QSTP is an opportunity to collaborate, learn and continue developing the technology within Qatar’s growing innovation ecosystem.
“We’ve just started,” he says. “It’s like a first date.”
The remark reflects his approach to entrepreneurship. Rather than chasing quick success, he’s focused on building strong partnerships, improving the technology and taking steady steps forward.
Proud Every Day
Asked to name his proudest achievement, Nikita pauses before smiling.
I’m proud every day. Every day is special.
For him, success isn’t defined by a single breakthrough, product launch or milestone. It’s found in solving one problem after another, improving a little every day and staying honest throughout the journey.
His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is just as straightforward.
“Don’t lie,” he says. “People will eventually discover the truth, so it’s always better to be honest.”
It’s a philosophy that has shaped AYOLA from the very beginning. What started as a simple experiment on an apartment balcony has grown into a company reimagining how food can be produced in some of the world’s harshest climates, proving that sometimes the greatest opportunities are found exactly where others see the greatest obstacles.
Like AYOLA, every startup begins by challenging convention. Explore the QSTP Incubation Program and join a growing ecosystem supporting technology startups as they innovate, grow, and scale from Qatar to the world.
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