Armenia's top 10 startups which succeeded abroad
YEREVAN, March 12. /ARKA/. Forbes and TechCrunch describe Armenia as a world-class techno-hub, whose government relies on IT in its long-term economic development strategy, the Russian rb.ru writes. It says entrepreneurs in Armenia make use of such local advantages as a strong technological school inherited from the Soviet times and one of the largest Diaspora with an active presence in Silicon Valley.
"We talked with experts and selected 10 of the most interesting startups with Armenian roots, which were launched not earlier than 2015, attracted funding and are successfully selling their products on the international market," the article says.
In 2019, Armenia's technology sector grew by 30% to contribute 2.5% of GDP. In 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the turnover of technology companies increased by 20.6%. Intel, IBM, Synopsys, Cisco and other corporations are expanding their presence in the region, while Armenian startups are successfully attracting foreign funding and entering the global market.
1.) Vineti
It simplifies the management of personalized therapy. Founders: Heidi Hagen, Emmy Duross, Nerses Ohanyan, Razmik Abnous. Total Investment: $ 115.3 million. Established: 2016. Vineti has patented the Personalized Therapy Management (PTM) platform, which ensures regulatory compliance and patient safety in the course of cell and gene therapy and cancer treatment. The software connects pharmaceutical companies, distributors and clinics and allows to reduce the risk of human factors and speed up the delivery of drugs to the patient. The importance of the platform for the industry was noted by experts of the World Economic Forum, who awarded the company the Technology Pioneer 2019 award. Vineti closed its last round of funding in 2020, raising a total of $68 million ($35 million in February and $33 million in October) from medical giant Cardinal Health, Canaan Partners, Threshold Ventures, Lifeforce Capital and others.
2.) DISQO
It analyzes consumer behavior. Founders: Armen Achemyan, Dro Kocharean, Armen Petrosyan. Total investment: $ 16.5 million. Established: 2015. DISQO helps businesses and marketing agencies analyze consumer behavior. The company conducts research using a mobile app and a data analysis platform. The active audience that DISQO interacts with is over 10 million users. The first DISQO investors were Alpha Edison and Bonfire Ventures. The company channeled the funds into the development of the technological side of the project: it launched the Survey Junkie analytical application, announced the introduction of artificial intelligence for more accurate processing of the received data. Today, more than 160 people work on the product in several offices in the United States and in Yerevan. According to the company's own data, DISQO's three-year consolidated annual growth rate was 441%. DISQO is ranked 955 by Inc. 5000 2020, which includes the fastest growing US companies.
3.) Krisp.
It removes background noise from video and audio communications. Founders: Artavazd Minasyan, David Baghdasaryan Total Investment: $ 17.5 million. Established: 2017. Krisp has developed AI-based noise suppression technology that mutes ambient sounds during online communication. The machine learning system detects the human voice and removes extraneous sounds with a maximum delay of 15 milliseconds. According to David Baghdasaryan, co-founder and CEO of Krisp, during 2019 the company connected 600 corporate clients from scratch, reaching a turnover of $4 million per year. Krisp's partners are the Discord messenger and the Sitel company. Forbes named Krisp as one of the 50 Most Promising AI Companies in 2020. David says that the transition of most companies to remote work due to the pandemic has had a positive impact on business. In 2020, the company increased the number of active users by 20 times and ARR (annual recurring revenue) by 13 times. In February 2021, Krisp raised $9 million in a follow-up round of $5 million in the summer of 2020. The new round was led by the RTP Global Fund, and current investor Storm Ventures also took part in it. TechNexus Venture Collaborative, Sierra Ventures and HIVE Ventures have previously invested in the startup. By the end of the year, Krisp plans to expand the team from 95 to 170 people, 45 of whom will be involved in R&D.
4.) IntelinAir
It helps farmers increase yields. Founder: Al Eisayan. Total investment: $4.5 million. Established: 2015. The company helps agricultural companies and private farmers improve business efficiency. IntelinAir analyzes aerial imagery, weather data, soil temperature, rainfall and more. Using hyperspectral analysis, computer vision and deep learning technologies, the platform identifies patterns and creates predictive analysis of the state of the fields being monitored. The user gets access to analytical data and forecasts in real time through a mobile application. The information helps farmers and agricultural companies predict crops and prevent losses. IntelinAir is supported by investors from Harvard Business School Angels Chicago, Hyde Park Venture Partners and HIVE Ventures. By the end of 2020, the company quadrupled (to 4 million acres) the monitored area and analyzed more than 70 thousand fields.
5.) SuperAnnotate
It speeds up image annotation by 10-20 times. Founders: Tigran Petrosyan, Vahan Petrosyan. Total investment: $ 3 million. Established: 2018. The SuperAnnotate platform optimizes the interaction between engineers and image annotation teams. It can help complete image tagging tasks up to 20 times faster. SuperAnnotate customers gain control over the manual coding process at all levels. Using artificial intelligence technology, the platform can automate a number of processes and improve the accuracy of annotation. Since starting operations in February 2020, the company has attracted 3,000 data scientists and over 100 business customers, according to CrunchBase. Today, SuperAnnotate's clients include leading companies from retail, security, medicine, self-driving vehicles and other industries. In February 2021, the company became a partner of the largest international library of computer vision algorithms OpenCV. According to Grand View Research, the annotation tool market will grow to $2.57 billion by 2027. The founders - brothers Tigran and Vahan Petrosyan - created a platform based on algorithms that Vahan developed as part of his doctoral dissertation. The startup received first attention of investors and the entrepreneurial community at the Sevan Startup Summit. Then Fanthom Capital, Point Nine Capital, Runa Capital and others believed in SuperAnnotate. The team completed the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund accelerator program. The company plans to launch a marketplace for annotation. According to Tigran Petrosyan, in the coming years SuperAnnotate plans to expand the product line and engage in annotation not only of images, but also of video and audio materials.
6.) TruePublic
It conducts opinion polls. Founders: Arsen Gevorgyan, Kabin Klauson, Ruben Dinalyan. Total investment: $ 1.4 million. Established: 2018. The founders of TruePublic have created a platform that allows individuals, businesses, and the media to conduct anonymous public opinion polls on any topic. According to Arsen Gevorgyan, the founder of the company, the main advantages of TruePublic are the ability to anonymously express your point of view, a wide range of audience filters, and visualization of results. The idea for such a service emerged during the 2016 US elections. According to Arsen, it became clear then that the existing tools for monitoring public opinion did not reflect the real situation in the country. Results from TruePublic are cited by TechCrunch, Forbes, CNBC and other leading publications. Users have voted on the portal and mobile app a total of over 61 million times. In total, since the launch of TruePublic, it has managed to attract more than 200 thousand users; today, 50 thousand active questions have been opened in the service. The total amount of attracted investments is $1.4 million. The founders of TruePublic plan to use funds to develop the platform and launch it in new locations.
7.) Grovf
Accelerates data centers. Founders: Khachik Sahakyan, Artavazd Khachatryan. Total investment: $600 thousand. Established: 2017. Grovf is dedicated to accelerating the performance of data centers and their applications - Spark, Cassandra, Kafka and others. The company's clients include leading processor and server manufacturers, as well as cloud providers. Khachik Sahakyan and Artavazd Khachataryan, the founders of the company, were engaged in science before starting their business. The emergence of Grovf was the result of their research in the field of radio physics and radio engineering. The company's offices are located in California and Yerevan. The first investors in Grovf were SmartGateVC and Granatus Ventures. According to a company spokesman, in the near future, Grovf will introduce an innovative memory scaling technology.
8.) Expper Technologies
Develops a robot for children. Founders: Karen Khachikyan, Hayk Korasanyan, Areg Gasparyan. Investment: $200 thousand. Established: 2019. Startup Expper Technologies started out as a robotics-assisted customer service, but quickly changed direction and entered the childcare market. The company has developed a robot called Robin, an artificial intelligence that aims to help children cope with fear and loneliness during inpatient treatment. Expper Technologies' own study found that the robot can help reduce hospital stress by 34%. Now the robot is present in 9 medical institutions and has already worked with more than 1,000 children, according to the company's website. According to Karen Khachikyan, co-founder and CEO of the company, Expper Technologies plans to install Robin in 10 thousand American clinics in the next 2-3 years. At the start of the project, the company raised $200,000 from SmartGateVC funds, HIVE Ventures, as well as from private investors to launch a pilot and develop the technology. The company's offices are located in California and Yerevan.
9.) ZERO
Automates work with mail for lawyers. Founders: Alexey Babin, Alexander Volkov, Gevorg Karapetyan. Investors: AltaIR Capital, Acorn Pacific Ventures, NFX. Established: 2015 ZERO uses artificial intelligence to simplify email management and automate administrative tasks for lawyers. The application works on the user's device without the participation of cloud services, which eliminates data security problems. The company uses proprietary machine learning and speech processing algorithms. ZERO automatically sorts emails in iManage, NetDocuments and OpenText document management systems. According to the company's website, its clients include Benesch, Johnson Winter & Slattery and other law firms around the world.
10.) Chessify
Helps professional chess players and beginners. Founders: Gor Vardanyan, Hambartsum Petrosyan. Total investment: €50 thousand. Established: 2016. Chessify has developed a feature-rich platform for chess players. It includes a mobile learning app, AI-powered game streaming and analysis tools, and an online gaming platform. Chessify's target audience is professional and advanced chess players, with the majority of users registered from India, USA, Russia and Norway. According to the company's website, Chessify has been downloaded more than 500 thousand times, and the monthly number of active users exceeds 30 thousand. Chessify reduces the time spent on learning chess by 30%. -0-