13:03 | 15.03.19 | News | exclusive 16187

Index Ventures hosts pitch competition in Armenia

A delegation from San-Francisco and London-based Index Ventures is currently visiting Yerevan and meeting with representatives of local startup ecosystem for discussions and consultations.

Index Ventures held its Armenia Tech Summit on March 14 in Tumo Center for Creative Technologies. The summit included panel discussions on the topics “Investing in Emerging Markets”, “Raising a Seed Round” and “Important Legal and Communication Tips”.

“Index Ventures has always believed entrepreneurship can come from outside of Silicon Valley. That is why, each year, we go to a budding startup ecosystem, like Armenia, to mentor founders,” Principal of Index Ventures, investor of HIVE Ventures Nina Achadjian told Itel.am.

In conclusion of the summit 10 Armenian startups pitched their solutions to Index Ventures. Although the delegation planned to invest in one startup and provide to it USD 25,000, after the pitching the Index Ventures team decided to invest in three startups at once. The startups are Embry, D'efekt and RetentionForce.

Embry Tech is a patent-pending technology to turn all types of shoes to biometric data tracking and wellness monitoring device.

D'efekt is a startup that enables users to make and share a variety of videos and visual materials with AI-based special effects. It received USD 15,000.

RetentionForce’s solution helps maintain customer retention for beauty salons and related wellness industry. RetentionForce received the main investment, USD 25,000.

Narine Daneghyan