Resources

We are the first venture capital firm to provide investment, expertise and networks to startups worldwide that leverage Armenia's potential as an emerging technology hub
We back outstanding teams that have the vision and discipline to build high-growth enterprises targeting global markets in sectors that leverage the latest developments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies.
Granatus is an operationally driven firm that engages in the early stages of product development and company formation, where we can most effectively accelerate growth. We work closely with our founding teams to develop and execute strategies, while providing access to key players, markets and capital through our strong commercial and financial networks.

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![Granatus Ventures Managing Partner Manuk Hergnyan made presentation about Angel and VC investing at Hackathon [YAN] Flight 2013](https://www.granatusventures.com/sites/default/files/styles/news_block__160x120_/public/IMG_8184.jpg?itok=AmvoPE3X)

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Transferring knowledge from one generation of enterpreneurs to the next
We focus on helping companies to build the product, scale and market relying on the experience of the partners and our extensive network for access of the markets of Europe, Asia, Russia, and North America. Our approach and selection criteria are based on the following key factors and our ability to add value:
Granatus Ventures brings the following help to its portfolio companies:
- Advice from the experienced entrepreneurs and investors from our Global Advisory Network
- Establishing operations in Armenia for its highly experienced and cost effective engineers, designers, marketers, network administrators and other engineering and operating staff
Granatus invests in exceptional teams that have execution-focused approach and are dedicated to building scalable products with ambition to become leaders in high growth sectors. We particularly like:
- Passionate and committed management team
- Innovative and disruptive value proposition
- Financially scalable market opportunity
- Strong potential for sustainable recurring revenues
- Realistic business model and financial projections
- Viable exit opportunity
We look for businesses and teams that are:
- Leveraging the latest developments in social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies
- Building scalable products and solutions
- Relying on underlying proprietary core technologies
- Creating global leaders in high-growth sectors
- Experienced in building products and have execution-focused management teams
Granatus can engage early in the life of a company, providing startups with initial seed capital, and following on with additional investments as the company matures. We often assume the role of lead investor and leverage our network of like-minded co-investment partners who can add value and accelerate the company’s growth.
Granatus Ventures invests in teams and startups worldwide provided that they have core value-add activities in Armenia. Armenia’s high-growth, globally connected technology sector offers many advantages to startups, including:
- Growing availability of skilled engineering talent with international experience
- A strong execution-focused entrepreneurial culture
- Comparatively lower domestic operating costs
- Supportive government policies and financial incentives
- Strong presence of the Diaspora in major tech ecosystems
Our Team
Our Team
Our operationally focused team is committed to driving value by working closely with each new venture to accelerate growth and market leadership.
The versatility of our hands-on approach is a result of the team's complementary mix of start-up, investment and operating expertise.

Manuk Hergnyan
Manuk has over 15 years of experience in consulting, management and entrepreneurship. He is the founder and managing partner of EV Consulting, a leading business advisory firm specializing in corporate finance, strategy, market and performance improvement. Manuk has helped Armenian companies raise over $60 million in capital from international and local financial institutions. He is also the founding chairman of the Economy and Values (EV) Research Center, a partner institute of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Network. Manuk previously led a team of advisors that prepared an investment pipeline for an IFC-supported private equity fund, and now serves on the board of a number of companies including Liqvor Pharmaceuticals.
Through his work at EV, Manuk actively promotes and helps shape public policy and national strategies for Armenia’s high tech industry. He is a member of the Scientific Technical Council and the Industrial Council chaired by the Prime Minister of Armenia. He also actively mentors startups and serves as judge in a number of innovation/business plan competitions (STEP, Innovation Matching Grants).
Manuk holds an Executive MBA from Oxford University, Said Business School, Ph.D. in Economics from Moscow State University and MA in Economics from Yerevan State University. He has been trained in management at Cambridge (UK), Harvard (USA) and Central European Universities (Hungary).

Pierre Hennes
Pierre has significant international experience in technology investments and new venture creation. In addition to his role as Partner of Granatus Ventures, he is the Managing Partner of Extream Ventures, a Singapore-based early-stage VC firm launched in 2009, funded in part by the Singapore Government's National Research Foundation, and a Partner of Upstream Ventures, a Singapore-based seed & startup investment firm launched in 2003. He has invested in seed, startup and early-stage companies across multiple sectors including consumer Internet, enterprise software, engineering and more recently clean-tech and medical devices.
Pierre currently serves as Executive Chairman of Tagit Pte Ltd, Asia’s leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions for the financial services sector, and actively invests in and advises promising startups in the clean-tech and medical devices sectors, including Visenti (smart water grid), Sentec (diabetes) and Glissade Dental (3D dental imaging).
Pierre is a frequent guest speaker and judge at industry events, and actively engages in mentorship, networking and industry-related activities throughout the region and overseas. He earned a B.A. with Honors in International Relations from Boston University, and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.

Yervand Sarkisyan
Yervand is a tech entrepreneur and investor based in London. He is a co-founder and partner at Granatus Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing in tech startups in UK/Europe, USA and Armenia and helping them to build engineering teams in Armenia. Yervand is also co-founder of Agnian, a digital design and development firm with offices in London and Yerevan.
Yervand serves on board of several companies, including Benivo and Wicastr. He has been engaged in the development of the Armenian tech sector for more than a decade. Working at Enterprise Incubator Foundation, he helped seed and advised several companies. Yervand has also served as an advisor to George Soros Foundation on media, technology and publishing projects.
He holds a Master in Finance with Distinction from London Business School. He has studied mathematics at Yerevan State University and computer science at American University of Armenia, affiliate of University of California. Yervand was awarded the Coller Institute of Private Equity prize in 2011.
Our Advisers
The Granatus Global Advisory Network brings together experienced, highly-respected entrepreneurs and experts from industry, venture capital and higher education from around the world to serve as a source of strategic direction, best practices and network development. The Network is an essential ingredient to the success of our ventures, as it extends the scope of resources available to the company across all stages of its lifecycle.
















SuperAnnotate.ai develops the world's fastest image annotation software.
Grovf is an application performance acceleration company through FPGA-CPU pairs, focusing on development of basic programming algorithms on FPGA and creating the universal offloading platform in application layer.
Netris [formerly XCloud Networks] is a new automatic net-ops platform that turns your network into service and provides network services to your Kubernetes cluster, compute and storage.
2Hz is building technologies at the intersection of Audio, Speech and AI.
Krisp its first product is award winning noise cancellation AI-powered software.
IntelinAir provides farmers with an easy-to-use and actionable insights through AI-powered real-time analysis of the aerial imagery, validated by expert agronomists.
Bazillion Beings is a platform for micro AIs as alternatives to apps: cute, user-created social bots that combine public APIs into new services.
Collectly helps healthcare providers collect more past due invoices by helping patients get out of the debt as smooth as possible.

Menu Group is online and mobile multi-restaurant food delivery service. It started in Armenia in 2013 and expanded to Georgia and Belarus.
Benivo (formerly Flat Club) has a mission to offer a cost-effective relocation management solution to companies focusing on their junior employees
gg is a leading app-based on-demand transport ordering platform based in Armenia with coverage throughout the Caucasus. The company seamlessly connects drivers and passengers, providing them with reliable and quality transportation services. Starting from Armenia, gg now has footprint in other markets including Russia, Georgia and most recently in the USA.
EXITED
Skycryptor is a cyber security startup based in Yerevan. Their flagship product called https://besafe.io is an easy to use and affordable cloud security solution for SME, which provides Data Loss Prevention and End-to-End Encrypted File sharing solutions integrated with modern cloud applications such as Google Drive, Slack, Dropbox, Gmail, etc .
Codesignal aims to make talent accessible by creating software and standards for assessing the technical skills of software developers.
SoloLearn is creating a largest community of mobile code learners. The platform provides users with unique teaching methodology and game-style learning experience in many programming languages
EXITED
Viciniti offers an easy to use infrastructure software that helps industrial organizations to run reliable and secure applications on-premise.
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![Granatus Ventures Managing Partner Manuk Hergnyan made presentation about Angel and VC investing at Hackathon [YAN] Flight 2013](https://www.granatusventures.com/sites/default/files/styles/news_block__160x120_/public/IMG_8184.jpg?itok=AmvoPE3X)

Contact
For general enquiries please contact us at:
email: [email protected]
phone: +374 10 546436
address: 37 Hanrapetutyan St., Yerevan 0010, Armenia
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