smartgate.vc

03/01/2023

We are hiring! Join our team as a Program Associate to work with us across Yerevan and California if you’re passionate about startups and have a strong analytical mindset.

Discover more about the opportunity and apply here: www.smartgate.vc/vacancy/program-associate

10/05/2022

SmartGateVC is partnering with the Development Facility of the European Fund for Southeast Europe (EFSE DF) to pioneer a recoverable model for early-stage and R&D companies in . Thus, the recipients of the grants will repay the grant amount when achieving certain solid milestones. This way the recovered amount will be used for similar grants in the future and making the same money work for the startup ecosystem in multiple cycles.

✔️ SmartGateVC's new investments are eligible for a matching recoverable grant (i.e. venture debt).
✔️ We open a call for applications by R&D companies to receive an up to EUR50K grant. The application deadline is October 17. The final selection will be made by a jury panel in November. The application package is available here: https://lnkd.in/eVzAuz8v

✔️ Check out the details here: https://lnkd.in/eT22FFdA

03/24/2022

HyeTech EIP 2022 is planned for July 8-18. Apply by April 15 to join the cohort of 10 founders exploring growth opportunities for them in Silicon Valley / Los Angeles.

Excited to announce that we are opening the applications for the third batch of our HyeTech Entrepreneur Immersion Program (EIP) - a 10-day intensive program providing 10-12 Armenian early-stage startup founders exposure to the opportunities and hold for them. The main focus of the program is going to be on cross-border growth, sales, and fundraising.

The program aims to help the founders to:
✔️understand how best to engage with SV and LA on an ongoing basis and draw maximum value from available resources;
✔️discover key subject matter experts and business leaders in their industry, including competitors, partners, and potential customers;
✔️experience tempo and highly competitive nature of building startups in 2022;
✔️feel the vibes and dynamics of SV culture.

📅 Application Deadline: 15 April
👉 Learn more and apply: https://www.hyetech.io/eip2022
📌 Who should apply: startup founders who raised less than $500K and think they need the program
❕ Visa support provided

In case of questions drop a line to [email protected]!

EIP is brought to life by joined forces of HyeTech, Hero House by smartgate.vc and Globally - Global Entrepreneurship Foundation.

11/18/2021

This week we hosted Senator Anthony Portantino at Hero House Yerevan! Together we discussed Southern California’s potential and our initiatives unleashing opportunities for local , and young . Senator Portantino shares our vision for the future as he highlighted the importance of technological advancement in the area. We look forward to working alongside him in our pursuit!

07/12/2021

Our portfolio company SuperAnnotate raised a $14.5 million round led by Base10 Partners with participation from existing investors Point Nine Capital, Runa Capital and Fathom Capital!

Vahan Petrosyan, Tigran Petrosyan & team - we are so proud of you!

The company looks to democratize the budding machine learning field by offering automation software and experts companies can tap.

06/16/2021

SmartGateVC invests in Pinsight, a SaaS that empowers product and customer teams to get predictions and insights with one click. Հրանտ Աշոտի Դավթյան, and team, welcome to the SmartGateVC family!

We are thrilled to announce our investment in Pinsight as a lead investor in their pre-seed round. Pinsight is a SaaS product that empowers product and customer teams to automate the process of extracting predictions and human-friendly insights from CRM, financial and other raw data with one click.

05/08/2021

We're excited to welcome Dowork.ai, a collaborative platform for project time and cost estimation, to the family of portfolio companies. Dowork.ai 2.0 became the #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt on May 6.

Dowork.ai, a collaborative platform for project time and cost estimation, raised a pre-seed round led by SmartGateVC with the participation of Hye Rise Investments and angel investors from Science and Technology Angel Network (STAN) Sassoon Kosian and Artur Alaverdyan. We’re thrilled to welcome Do...

02/17/2021

Krisp is our very first investment and seems like it has a one-way ticket to the unicorn club!

Krisp, a startup that uses machine learning to remove background noise from audio in real time, has raised $9M as an extension of its $5M A round announced last summer. The extra money followed big traction in 2020 for the Armenian company, which grew its customers and revenue by more than an order....

01/22/2021

SuperAnnotate, the fastest annotation platform for training AI, is nominated for Product Hunt's Golden Kitty Awards 2020 in the category of AI and Machine Learning!

Check them out and show some love: https://lnkd.in/dmYusms

01/21/2021

Expper Technologies' Robin the Robot is nominated for for the Best Hardware Product of The Year, along with the products of such technology giants as Apple, PlayStation, and Oculus.

Check them out and show your love.

Karén Khachikyan,

Product Hunt's annual Golden Kitty Awards 2020. Nominate your favorite products for Hardware category.

01/08/2021

"Thanks to SmartGateVC’s Hero House Glendale hub and the inaugural GateWay accelerator, start-ups from the emerging Europe region will be able to take advantage of everything that Southern California has to offer." - Emerging Europe

Apply for the Hero House GateWay program by January 10: https://www.herohouse.io/

Agata Badalyan, Karén Khachikyan, dzook, Expper Technologies,

Glendale-based start-up hub Hero House is set to launch its GateWay accelerator, connecting emerging Europe’s start-ups with Southern California’s opportunities. In recent years, due to the rising costs of labour and housing in California’s Silicon Valley, many start-up founders have been fore...

01/07/2021

Podcastle AI made number one on the list of best productivity hacks that TikTok users speak about.
Last month the powered text-to-speech converter was the #9 on The Startup Pill's list of Top 101 Startups of 2020.
Get the free extension here: https://podcastle.ai/

The best productivity hacks on TikTok include more effective to-do lists, how to unsend emails, and music to help you focus.