🇦🇲🦊 Messi teams up with Razmig Hovaghimian to get into tech investing!
Curated resources for Armenian founders and tech enthusiasts.
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One of the greatest soccer/football player of all time, Lionel Messi, is getting into tech investing through a new partnership called Play Time, led by Razmig Hovaghimian - partner at venture capital firm Graph Ventures, and special advisor Michael Marquez - founding partner of investment bank Code Advisors LLC.
The holding company will be headquartered in San Francisco and will act as the main arm for Messi’s investments in sports, media, and technology investments globally (ie: football-tech).
Play Time has already incubated a startup called MatchDay, a stealth-mode games studio for football fans that will launch to the public prior to the FIFA World Cup starting in a few weeks. Hovaghimian said, “We’re all in, starting by building a strong bridge between football’s 5B fans and technology.” You can read more about this story on TechCrunch!
Armenian Tech News 📣
🚀 Ntropy, a company offering an API that enriches transaction data for financial services businesses, raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Lakestar. See our previous Startup Spotlight for more information on the company.
🥳 Hexens closed $4.2M seed funding led by IOSG Ventures, with the participation of Delta Blockchain Fund, Chapter One, Hash Capital, ImToken Ventures, TENZOR CAPITAL, and angels from Polygon.
🤖 While Copy.ai reached 2M users in August, they just surpassed $10M ARR. Congrats to the whole team!
🤑 SmartGateVC and European Fund for Southeast Europe Development Facility team up to launch a new model for financing R&D companies in Armenia. Read about it here!
🤝 Children of Armenia Charitable Foundation (COAF) initiated its Alumni Incubation Program in cooperation with StartDoon. The purpose of the program is to help the rural youth of Armenia to bring to life their innovative startup ideas in the fields of EdTech, FinTech, tourism, agricultural technology (Agritech), and Green Solutions
💰 Kim Kardashian and a former partner at The Carlyle Group, Jay Sammons are launching a new private equity firm focused on investing in consumer and media businesses called SKKY Partners.
💻 Hyetab is a free web browser extension with a non-profit mission that makes it super simple to raise money for Armenian charities. Download it today and learn more about it at https://hyetab.io.
💼 M1TQ Demo Day is coming up on November 7th. Event details and Registration. is a conference covering diverse topics in machine learning, with a strong focus on engineering and applications. It is a forum for sharing ideas and fostering collaboration.
🚨 Hye Ventures Syndicate: As mentioned a few months ago (read about it here), we now have an investment syndicate looking to back Armenian founders that are raising capital. If you are interested in supporting product-driven, Armenian founders as an investor, fill out the form & we’ll be happy to share our investment opportunities with you!
What we’re following 🚀
Entrepreneurship:
How the best CFOs are navigating the current market downturn.
You don’t need to code in 2022 → No-Code Solution for everything
‘If you’re going to build something from scratch, this might be as good a time as in a decade’ - Bill Gurley
Jobs 💼
Wirestock is looking for an experienced scrum master to oversee and guide their scrum teams. Check out their job posting!
SuperAnnotate is looking to hire a Product Manager in Armenia.
Startup spotlight 👨💻👩💻
CurbWast, founded by Michael Marmo in 2018, is revolutionizing the waste management industry through its cloud-based and data-driven clean-tech platform, bringing automation, transparency, and sustainability from collection to disposal. Their cloud-based platform CurbWaste allows haulers to optimize and digitize customer creation, order management, inventory management, dispatching, driver app, and billing - from haul to disposal in real-time. Vach Hovsepyan, a former ServiceTItan and Deputy executive, joined the B2B Vertical SaaS startup to bring his expertise and take the company to the next level. The team recently raised a $6M seed round led by B Capital along with Mucker Capital. Read about their recent financing on BusinessWire.
“Americans generate an average of 292 million tons of trash per year, which continues to grow. To keep pace with this need and keep our towns and cities sanitary and safe, waste management companies are turning to digital solutions to streamline operations and meet environmental requirements from their clients,” - CurbWaste CEO Michael Marmo.
The company is looking to expand to Armenia in the next few months and is looking to hire 3 Senior Engineers. Message me if you are interested in connecting with the team for these roles!
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