Armenia Startup Academy graduates: Growflex

American University of Armenia held a demo day for the second batch of Armenia Startup Academy accelerator on May 30, which included 12 startups.

Itel.am tells about the second batch of Armenia Startup Academy graduates in these series.

Growflex creates an easily movable system, based on aquaponics, which allows growing foliage plants anywhere under the open sky.

The founders of the startup are Artur Aleksanyan and Davit Musayelyan.

As an advantage of Growflex, they noted the automation, flexibility and mobility.

The system requires an area of 2 square meters, where 3 times more plants can be grown.

“We plan to rent areas or rooftops from citizens for installing our system and growing plants. The plants will then be sold to restaurants, while citizens will receive the rent in the form of either plants or money from sale,” the startup noted.

Growflex targets large markets, particularly the European and American cities with mild climate, which enables growing plants 12 months a year.

The startup noted that Armenia Startup Academy program helped them develop the idea and start working on the prototype.

“Owing to the program, we did in 3 months the work that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do in 2 years,” the startup remarked.

Growflex team intends to finalize the prototype, install the system in a number of areas and start the sale. The startup is also willing to have sustainable version of the product and certain revenue at the end of the year.

Armenia Startup Academy is initiated by Catalyst Foundation and implemented in the framework of the EU4Business Support to SME Development (SMEDA) Project, which is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ’s Private Sector Development in South Caucasus Programme. SMEDA is part of the EU4Business and EU4Innovation initiatives of the European Union.

Narine Daneghyan