For the past few years, Armenia has probably been the global tech community’s best-kept secret. But the cat is now out of the bag.
Significant numbers of founders and investors alike have been hyping up Armenia’s nascent but bustling startup ecosystem, particularly for European startups looking for advice on how to scale to North America.
With a population of around 3 million, the domestic market is tiny – but this forces startup founders to adopt a global-facing thought paradigm from day one. In particular, many startups expand into the US to support their growth quickly.
What’s more, if you dig beneath the surface, you find an innovation-fostering ecosystem of collaboration where early-stage founders can often draw on the advice of later-stage, successful business leaders as part of the community. The migration path between Armenia talent and the US is highly advantageous for trade relations.
In 2018, Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan led a delegation of government officials to ServiceTitan’s California headquarters to meet with US government representatives. It resulted in investment agreements between the two countries worth $30.5 million.
Already, Armenia is home to research and innovation centres for many top American technology companies, including the Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia, Nvidia Scientific Research Center, as well as the engineering offices of Synopsys, National Instruments, Oracle, VMWare, Cisco, Mentor Graphics, Teamviewer, and D-Link.
From 2020 to 2022, investments in Armenian startups reached $48 million. While this number is far from colossal, it has been growing exponentially. Investors have been attracted by the fact that the government is proactive in supporting tech entrepreneurship – with tech startups receiving attractive tax incentives (0 percent income tax, 10 percent flat payroll tax).
Some of Armenia’s most successful startups
ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan is a scaleup founded in 2012 that developed a platform to streamline operations, improve customer service, and drive growth for customers with plumbing, HVAC, and electrical services businesses. It’s raised $1.1 billion in funding and achieved unicorn status — Armenia’s other unicorn is the online photo and video editing app company Picsart, which reached a valuation of over $1 billion after its most recent funding round in 2021.
Krisp
Krisp is an AI-powered software solution that removes background noise through noise, voice, and echo Cancellation. Headquartered in California, the company has raised $17.5 million in funding.
Podcastle
Podcastle is an AI-powered audio content creation hub. It empowers podcasters, bloggers, journalists, educators, and content marketers to transform text into audio, edit seamlessly, and achieve professional-grade sound in seconds.
Founded in 2020, it has over 10,000 users and has raised $8.8 million.
Sololearn
SoloLearn is a free learning platform that helps millions of people worldwide learn to code. The company has raised $30.9 million in funding.