Ahead of Demo Day: Penny will help save money

In early 2015, Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia (MIC) Foundation organized MIC Acceleration program with participation of 7 local startups.

In April 2015, Demo Day of MIC Acceleration will be held during which teams will present the results of the work of past months to the Armenian and foreign investors and entrepreneurs.

Ahead of Demo Day, MIC Armenia and Itel.am will present the history of development of each the 7 startups.

Penny. The mobile will help people save money and manage it. “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned”- This is the main idea behind the application, developed by Levon Arkelatyan and Harutyun Arakelyan.

“I am a thrifty person, and it is not difficult for me to manage my budget and have certain savings. However, a lot of my friends were not able to save even if they had a lot of money.  I made a bit of research and found out that it is a real problem among the millennials (people born within 1980 -2000), especially in the USA”, says Harutyun Arakelyan.

In December 2014, Harutyun Arakelyan offered Levon Arkelatyan to jointly apply to MIC Acceleration program to find an IT solution to the issue.

Penny app is mostly developed now. Beta version will be released in the U.S. in fall.

“A user just needs to input the bank account details, and Penny will suggest savings, based on the analysis of spending behavior. To stand out from other similar apps, not a single banking data except for login and password will be needed. Everything will be done automatically”, notes Levon Arkelatyan.

According to the developers of the app, through the program, implemented by Microsoft Innovation Center - Armenia the startup had an opportunity to get acquainted with various mentors and specialists both in Armenia and abroad, develop their IT skills, as well as entrepreneurial skills and business way of thinking.

“Before the program we were only thinking about the development of the app but through the program we understood that it was vital to conduct deep market research, share the idea with specialists of various spheres and get their feedback. The development will be successful only in that case”, mentions Levon Arkelatyan.

“Unfortunately, the population in Armenia is not used to make payments with credit card, and we are more targeting American market”, mentions Harutyun Arakelyan.

It should be recalled that the team has already recorded certain success in identifying local investors, in particular Enterprise Incubator Foundation has provided $20,000 within the matching grant competition.

The team is planning to apply for the Fintech Accelerator program, jointly carried out by Barclays and Techstars in New York.