Armenia Startup Academy hosted a Demo Day to showcase the 8 startups that have completed the Academy’s Traction Program Batch 3. The 14-week mentorship program, which began in October 2022, is designed to help companies at the post-prototype stage accelerate their growth and secure funding. The program is implemented by Catalyst Foundation supported by the European Union’s EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia” (ITTD) project implemented by GIZ. Viva-MTS, Armenia’s leading mobile telecommunications operator, joined the initiative as a corporate partner and supporter.
During the program, the 8 startups worked on the development of their sales, growth hacking, and fundraising strategies. They received guidance and mentorship from experienced professionals, including Hamlet Azarian, the CEO of Azarian Growth Agency who has a wealth of experience in consulting businesses, particularly venture-backed startups in the pre-seed, seed, and Series A stag, and Alec Beglarian, the Founder and Email Marketing & Deliverability Consultant at Engage.guru, who is a digital marketing, branding, and user experience expert with over 15 years of experience. Throughout the programs the mentors worked closely with companies to providing strategic advice on building custom growth engines and help businesses succeed.
Armen Avetisian, General Director of Viva-MTS, who also participated in event, emphasized: “It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this project in Armenia, especially considering the fact that the venture winter is here and the economy stagnates at the global level, and the capitalization of big tech companies is following it. 2022 was the year of unexpected changes for many companies, and every day there are more questions about it: what’s next for startups and investments, is it worth launching a new tech business now, and which sector or market is better to choose?
It is important to understand that entrepreneurship can be conveniently divided into two parts: classical business, where your main task is to build a business, that will generate cash flow making a profit and dividends. When we take a look at the story related to venture capital and innovation, we see a story of building capitalization, where the main task is to predict the startup valuation in a few years. The task of an entrepreneur who goes into venture history is not to focus on dividends, but to have a visionary view and look at 5, 10, 15, or even more years ahead. We need to build big stories and focus on building the valuation and long-term capitalization of companies, and there will definitely be those who are ready to cooperate and help along this path,” Armen Avetisian added.
The eight startups representing a range of industries, including Edtech, healthtech, AI, and entertainment, have achieved measurable results throughout the program.
The EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia'' project is co-funded by the European Union and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by German Development Cooperation GIZ through the Private Sector Development and TVET South Caucasus Programme. The project is part of the EU4Business initiative of the European Union. It aims at the creation and further development of investable and innovative ventures in Armenia leading to stronger and competitive tech and innovation ecosystems with potential export orientation, increased number of Science2Business2Education cooperation platforms, and higher participation in HORIZON 2020 and HORIZON Europe innovation programmes.
