Ashot Arzumanyan: Investing in Armenian Start-ups

The first guest of the newly launched Creative Tech podcast series, “EVN Disrupt” is Ashot Arzumanyan, a partner at SmartGateVC, a venture capital fund focusing on early stage start-ups. We discussed the Armenian start-up ecosystem, how it has evolved over the last four years and what we can expect from the Armenian tech sector in the near future.
0:00 Introduction/
0:52 Founding of SmartGate VC/
3:50 Tim Draper’s investment in SmartGate/
8:28 Evolution of Armenia’s start-up ecosystem/
15:55 Rise of product companies in Armenia/
19:04 Recent investments in Armenian start-ups/
29:26 Hero House LA, Diasporan start-ups/
35:19 Challenges/
37:58 Future of SmartGate and the ecosystem