Armenia is known to be a great country with smart opportunities. In spite of the difficulties in the economy, the government and private sector work hard on developing high-tech and business development. With low taxes, educated and low-cost labor, and an investment-friendly environment Armenia enjoys a favorable position among the countries to start a business and grow globally. As a result a win-win situation is created between growth-minded businesses and developing countries, like Armenia.

Education, Research and Development

Education in Armenia allows to lay solid foundations for the prosperity of the country. Academic educational atmosphere, hard-work and motivation made it possible to reach significant success in many fields for centuries. Armenia has a very high level of education among the CIS countries with a comparably high adult-literacy rate. Recently a lot of universities, companies, foundations make a huge input on specialization in information and communication technologies and business.

Research and Development is considered one of the key drivers of growth in the country. The IT sector has been expanded during the recent years thanks to the research and development branches in Armenia by global tech giants including Microsoft, Oracle, National Instruments, etc.  Government and sectoral representatives have been implementing a number of new initiatives for revealing and developing R&D potential. The key focus has been on new educational initiatives, which are believed to boost the country’s technology and R&D.  An outstanding example of which is TUMO- a center for creative technologies offering education centers for teens specializing in technology and design. Four TUMO centers operate in Yerevan, Gyumri, Dilijan, Stepanakert in Armenia, 2 international centers in Beirut and Paris. Tumo Berlin is planned to be opened in October 2020 and TUMO Tirana, Moscow and Tokyo are on the list. The International network of TUMO centers is expanding focusing on several targets: programming, animation, filmmaking, graphic design, 3D modelling, game development, music, drawing, photography and robotics.

Information and Communication Technologies is one of the most desired industries, so many laboratories, technology centers open in the country and contribute to having high-quality specialists in the sphere. This makes Armenian workforce very competitive on a local level and attractive on international level. Armenian specialists are considered highly productive among global ICT communities, making the sector attractive to foreign investors. Besides Armenia is considered to be a low-cost location for offshore development, where salaries are competitive with those of many outsourcing countries such as Israel or China.

Here you can find out more about some competitive Armenian businesses and startups taking Armenian entrepreneurship to new heights. And given the size of Armenian economy any investment and  profit brought by them is very likely to be significant.

Startups

PicsArt

Armenia is a true heaven for startups, which is proved by the dramatic number of startups created in the country.Launched in 2011 PicsArt grew from a 10 people startup to one of the world’s top photo editing apps. By 2020 the app was downloaded up to 600 million times, which increased after pandemic, as people had more free time and needed to use their creativity. The number of edits on the platform grew by 15-20% and the number of active users per month exceeded 150 million. The headquarters of the company are both in Yerevan, Armenia and San-Francisco, USA and offices are located in Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and LA.

Krisp

Some startups have been globally recognized and successful in the age of coronavirus and Krisp is another good example, which was featured by prominent media like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post as one of the top tools to make remote work more effective during the coronavirus outbreak. It is a noise-reduction app, which mutes the background noise during calls making life easier while working from home.

Robin the Robot

Expper Technologies creates robots for corporate businesses intended for providing customer-care. Their most famous creation is Robin the Robot. It is a social robot, companion for children when they are hospitalized and helps them during medical treatment creating positive experiences. You can read on Forbes how Robin the Robot comforts kids in hospitals and helps with Covid-19. They started sales in Armenia in 2019 and now extended to the US market.

Prominent startups targeting international market also include: Arloopa- Armenian project working on augmented and virtual reality, 2D and 3D content, SoloLearn- educational platform making learning programming languages fun, which was included in top 10 fastest growing start-ups in Silicon Valley, CityBugs-  a system allowing city authorities to quickly address issues when citizens report them, Teamable- a recruiting tech company, which helps companies to connect to, engage with and hire top talent referrals.

Service Industry

ProDigi

The opportunity to provide  high-quality remote services (also big thanks to Covid-19) makes Armenian companies very attractive on an international level. The educational background and constant strive for development help Armenia-based companies like ProDigi  digital marketing agency provide services to the UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Hong-Kong and to other major business hubs. It feels like digital knowledge is the sun-kissed apricot of the marketing industry, which the company successfully exports to big markets. The process is accompanied with providing high-quality services with great communication and interpersonal skills which makes the foreign clientele feel at home. Thus, providing services to different countries the company brings economic growth to Armenia by paying taxes and generating in-country value. The business strives to contribute to local community growth by employing fresh graduates and turning them into professionals tracking international trends.

Digital Caramel

A related experience also gained Digital Caramel, which successfully manages to  provide digital services to most of the CIS countries and Russia. Besides the agency now is considering entering Western and Asian markets. This industry allows it to have a headquarter office in Armenia and easily conquer new markets by breaking the old rules and language barriers. The company services are entirely targeted to the international market, which results in contributing to the country budget. Importantly, the creation of new employment opportunities and jobs is exclusively done in Armenia increasing to the number of new workplaces.

Arara

The economical development of the country is closely connected with the tourism industry, which recently has been strongly hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Armenia was booming as a cultural travel destination and the hospitality was on a very high level, which allowed travel agencies like Arara Tour to expand their services to the whole Caucasus region and Central Asia. Operating from head offices in Armenia, Georgia and Central Asia the company organizes tours directed to 8 different countries. In fact bringing the profit to Armenia from tours to Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan. Despite the massive fall of the international tourist arrivals, the experts in the field are optimistic and hopeful about the recovery of industry. So does the agency with perspectives on opening new branches in Ukraine and Russia.

IT and Advanced Technologies

As you may have noticed most of the startups were IT startups, which indicates the favorable business climate that IT companies enjoy in Armenia and explains why it is called “The Silicon Mountains”. Armenia has extensive experience, with large multinational IT companies having operations in the country (Microsoft, Intel, Synopsys, Oracle, Cisco, National Instruments, etc). Most of Armenian IT companies specialize in software development like

SFL

SFL is a software development and consulting company which brings digital transformation to a number of businesses on the globe. Using innovative technologies the company delivers personalized multichannel user-experience with higher lifetime value. Founded in 2006, now the company has headquarters in Yerevan and Chicago with over 100 specialists.

10Web

10 Web is a complete WordPress managing platform with a full suite of tools from cloud hosting to page builder to easily design, develop and launch websites, as well as manage, optimize and maintain existing websites. 10Web supports tens of thousands of clients ranging from small businesses to global enterprises. Company hosts over 1,000 websites and its products have been downloaded over 20 million times.

Successful investments and collaborations across different industries in the international market suggest that Armenia is a prefered destination for global players. The country's potential is being effectively used, but the numbers and success indicate even a better future.