Earlyone wins Seedstars Yerevan

The final competition of Seedstars Yerevan took place on June 25 at American University of Armenia, where Earlyone startup was declared the winner.

The team developed an application that allows businesses to reduce customers’ waiting time spent in the line, thus saving around USD 30,000 per year. The app will be launched in July.

Earlyone will join 64 other winners from different countries in the regional and final competitions, the latter to be held in Switzerland and award the winner USD 500,000 investment from Seedstars.

Bazillion Beings startup took the second place. It is an alternative/platform of application that provides self-monetization of user-created bots.

The third place is occupied by Qlim, which is a two-sided marketplace for car owners and service providers in the car wash industry.

The other finalists

Armacad is an online platform that helps to find scholarship, study and career opportunities.

Terreva is a tool for plant identification. It provides plant specific care advice that helps you keep your plants healthy and vibrant.

Embrion is a combination of smart scales and wearable activity tracker.

Evoca allows users from all over the world to quickly and effortlessly learn and memorize large number of foreign words and phrases.

Haystack is a search engine for licensable creative content.

LiveBoard is a virtual shared board for collaboration and education through innovative tech solutions. You can read about the app in detail here.

Localz is a platform for tourists, where they can choose a tour and establish a direct contact with professional guides. More information here.

MovieTrip is an app for movie loving travelers that allows them to easily find locations from their favorite movies. More information here.

VQUICK is an all in one video capture, collaboration, editing and publishing platform.

Impressions from the jury

A member of the jury, Seedstars World MENA/CEE Senior Associate Tiffany Obser told Itel.am that she is impressed with the level of Armenian startups’ ideas: “They think globally, they think of growth, and they solve a number of specific problems. There were certain solutions that I would like to see on the market. It was rather difficult to determine the winner, we had long discussions.”

Another member of the jury, Wicastr co-founder & CEO Armine Saidi told Itel.am that he noticed a drastic improvement in representation of entrepreneurship and startups.

“I am especially impressed by Earlyone, Bazillion Beings, Qlim and Localz startups. One or two years ago texts prevailed at pitching, but now the text was reduced, and emotions and images were more present, which makes the concept and vision of the app easier for comprehension,” he said.

Touching upon possible mistakes of the startups, the jury members stressed the fact that the startups spent too much time on presentation of the technological part.

“Pitching aims to show your startup’s value to customers and investors. It’s not about how good your technology is and how you made it. Before pitching, you need to answer two questions: who you and why now?” noticed Armine Saidi.

It is worth reminding that the contest was organized by Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia and Seedstars World.

You can read the interview of Seedstars Regional Manager for CEE/MENA Igor Ovcharenko for Itel.am here.

Narine Daneghyan