February gave a great opportunity to Armenian start-ups to leave their comfort zones and travel to the tech center California for an intensive 10-day programme aimed at helping them get acquainted with the most useful innovations, as well as tech culture and tendencies in Silicon Valley.
In total, 13 Armenian start-ups participated in the HyeTech Entrepreneur Immersion Programme 2019 (HyeTech EIP), held on February 15-24 in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, which also included visits to accelerators and investment firms.
Five Armenian start-ups that had received grants in the framework of the EU-SMEDA project were among the selected teams.
They are:
EasyDMARC (EU4Business STEP2 grant) – all-in-one solution to set up email authentication effectively and quickly.
Robin the Robbot (EU4Business STEP2 grant) – a business assistant robot, developed by Expper LLC, providing personalised service and support in real-time conversations with customers.
RiskSensor (EU4Business STEP1 grant) – a risk management toolkit specialised in market risk management with some coverage of operational risk utilising big data and machine learning technologies.
D’efekt (EU4Business STEP2 grant) – a mobile app that enables users to make and share a variety of videos and visual materials with AI-based special effects.
On your way (EU4Business IMG1 grant) – a platform that allows users to transport products from USA stores to Lebanon and earn enough money to cover their round-way trips.
The programme concluded with a pitching competition, which had two winners – one of which was EU4Business grantee D’efekt.
Since 2017, the ‘Support to SME Development in Armenia’ (EU-SMEDA) project, which is funded by the European Union under the EU4Business initiative and implemented by GIZ in cooperation with the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF), has been supporting Armenian start-ups with two types of grant – Innovation Matching Grants (IMG) and Science and Technology Entrepreneurship (STEP) grants.