Nitzan Yudan, CEO Benivo

Nitzan Yudan, CEO

Benivo: Taking HR tech global with the help of Armenia’s ‘amazing’ talent

In the beginning, Benivo founder Nitzan Yudan didn’t set out to disrupt how companies handle human resources. He certainly didn’t plan on building a startup in Armenia. But over the past decade, that’s exactly what he and his team have done.

“Benivo is an HR tech company,” Nitzan explains. “We build technology that transforms this industry and makes mobility leaders a lot more strategic by leveraging data…to unlock insights and make decisions.”

The company provides some of the world’s biggest companies with an end-to-end employee mobility management platform, while also using artificial intelligence to automate HR work and generate data-driven insights.

But it didn’t start out that way. In 2011, Nitzan was living in London, working on an apartment rental startup, similar to Airbnb.

“At some stage, Airbnb grew very fast, and all their competitors went bankrupt. And we realized that we needed to find a different angle,” he recalls.

Then, a chance meeting with leaders at Google led to a deal that changed the course of Nitzan’s career.

“They told us about a need they had to streamline payments and to be able to deliver a digital experience to their employees. We said, ‘Well, we have a payment system already, and we know how to deliver a digital experience.’ And they said, ‘Can you go live in 30 days?’ We said, ‘Yes,’ and we went live,” Nitzan says. “They gave us the opportunity, and we never looked back.”

In 2015, Nitzan and his team rebranded their venture as Benivo — and that’s where Granatus Ventures came in.

“At the time, we were looking to set up a new development center, because we couldn’t do it in London. There weren’t enough developers here with enough talent,” Nitzan says.

He turned to Granatus co-founder and partner Yervand Sarkisyan, whom he knew from business school, and asked for his advice.

“So at the time, I was looking at three markets: Ukraine, China, and Israel, where I’m originally from,” Nitzan continues. “And [Yervand] told me, ‘Hey, how about you also check out Armenia?’”

He began interviewing prospective developers in all four countries, but quickly settled on Armenia.

“When I got to meet the people in Armenia, I was amazed by the quality of the people, the talent,” Nitzan recalls. “And we said, ‘Okay, let’s try [Armenia],’ and we hired the first employee there.”

Looking back, he says, “It was such a good decision.” Today, the majority of Benivo’s global workforce of more than 100 people is based in Armenia.

Granatus was also an early investor in the startup and, Nitzan says, played a crucial role helping the company establish itself in Armenia.

“Granatus has been a phenomenal partner. For everything, from helping us with admin, to setting up the company, to getting talent, to identifying market opportunities, they’ve been true supporters throughout,” Nitzan says.

“We are unique in Granatus’s profile because we don’t have an Armenian founder,” he continues. “But I see that as an opportunity, because there is talent in Armenia…We are extremely proud that every line of code is built in Armenia.”