5 Armenian startups that made it big: from picture editing to cell therapy solutions
Check out the biggest Armenian startups that made their success in photography, agriculture, healthcare, technology and more
When the PicsArt app went live in China, it added 15 million users almost overnight
IntelinAir leverages aerial imagery analytics to inform farmers what’s wrong with their crops
Krisp will help mute your giggling or yelling cubicle neighbour at work
Armenia may not be the Silicon Valley of the world, but it certainly is shaking up the world of innovation by producing some of the globally recognised startups, their domains ranging from arts to environmental sustainability.
1. PicsArt
PicsArt is a photo and video editor that offers users a variety of instruments and a social media platform to share creations and follow the artists. The app was developed in 2011 and is available in 30 languages for iOS, Android and Windows.
The app is free, but a subscription comes with additional features, exclusive educational resources and hidden ads. The estimated revenue of PicsArt is roughly $30 million. When the app was released in the Chinese market, it surged by 15 million monthly active users (MAU). Currently it has 130 million MAU globally.
Sequoia Capital, DCM Ventures, Insight Venture Partners and Siguler Guff and Comp. are the top venture capital firms backing the app. PicsArt attracted its first investment in 2015 with the total funding of 45 million USD.
The company is located in San-Francisco, but the Yerevan office is still the firm’s largest with 300 specialists, engineers and designers working from Armenia.
2. IntelinAir
Founded by the agritech evangelist Al Eisaian, IntelinAir is a platform for farmers, insurance companies and other actors of the agricultural market. It is an aerial analytics company that focuses on agriculture and provides actionable intelligence to make data-driven decisions. The company combines the power of aerial imagery analytics through computer vision and deep learning methodologies to deliver near real-time support to farmers. They detect abnormalities in crop conditions to optimise harvest and boost farm efficiency.
The estimated revenue is $4 million and the app works on a subscription-based platform; the price depends on additional services chosen by the client plus the number of acres.
It has 10-20 employees in the Yerevan office, but its headquarters are located in Champaign, Illinois.
3. Linguacode.me
Founded in 2015 by Arman Yeghiazaryan, LinguaCode is a social coding platform designed especially for children. The platform encourages children to learn programming and share their code in their native language, without the necessity of knowing English.
Children not only study the basic elements of programming, but also easily pass to professional programming languages. Their motto is: knowing English is very important, but a language must not be a barrier for learning programming. With LinguaCode anyone can study programming, while simultaneously learning languages.
4. Krisp
Krisp is a noise-cancelling and echo removal app that greatly reduces background noise during calls over Skype or other VoIP services. It minimises noises such as neighbours voices, sounds of typing and can even mute distracting street commotion.
It is a technology based on machine learning and digital signal processing. KrispNet, the neural network of the company, learned to detect human voice and selects only the human voice while filtering other inessential noises.
The app not only removes unwanted sounds from both ends of a conference call, but also provides room and acoustic echo removal, HD voice for best voice quality, a virtual background and instant audio recording of online meetings. It works with 800+ communication apps.
The app modifies both incoming and outgoing audio, whilst the sound delay is less than 15 milliseconds and does not affect the conversation. The startup is registered in the US, but the team works from Yerevan. The company is backed by Armenian venture firms Granatus Ventures and SmartGateVc.
5. Vineti
Vineti is a cloud-based platform created to simplify access to cell and gene therapy and personalised cancer vaccines. Their solution connects the right patient to the right product.
Vineti partners with KitePharma, Deloitte and World Courier to develop best-in-class logistics and data analytics software for engineered T-cell therapies at a commercial scale. They work with medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies to improve operations, minimise the human factor and make products compliant with regulations and standards. The estimated revenue of Vineti is around $2 million.
