We are delighted to announce our first two investments in 2Hz and XCloud Networks.
2Hz’s speech enhancement technology significantly removes background noise from a real time conversation. The technology is based on a patentable novel approach and leverages Deep Neural Networks. 2Hz’s specially designed deep neural network is trained to recognize noise in Audio and remove it without impacting the human speech. This significantly enhances audibility in communications and recordings. Potential applications include: real time speech enhancement for communications (TelCo, conferences), better quality speech to text, disruption of conferencing equipment industry with cheaper alternatives, and many others. The company is now part of Berkeley SkyDeck Accelerator.
“It is exciting to see this many capable people in one team and it is great to realize that you know these folks for a long while. We invest in confidence and happy to be partners with this team” - says SmartGateVC co-founder Hambardzum Kaghketsyan.
“This pre-seed investment is helping 2Hz to perfect its disruptive AI based technology and work with early pilot partners to prove its applicability in real life. We admire how SmartGate operates and are very excited to go to this journey together with this team.” - says 2Hz co-founder and CEO Davit Baghdasaryan.
XCloud Netwoks is a vendor of intent-based networking solution running on top of open networking equipment, it has swapped Cisco for a 25m user-base company. The company is disrupting telco backbone and wan by saving engineer time 100 times and total cost of ownership for 10 times. With early adopters in Europe, the team is currently working on penetrating the US market.
“We were working with the team since April last year and we are excited to be on board with this team - we firmly believe in their potential” - says SmartGateVC co-founder Ashot Arzumanyan.
“We have validated our technological approach through our innovator customers based in Europe, but still there is lots of things to do to offer 10 folds better product and cross the chasm to start acquiring early adopters. Current pre-seed investment round as well as wisdom from SmartGateVC are important components of this hard step.” - says XCloud Networks co-founder and CEO Alex Saroyan.
“In this industry professionals like Alex usually take the career path. XCloud Networks comes with a unique combination of top level industry expertise coupled with profound entrepreneurial mindset” - says SmartGateVC founding advisor Vazgen Hakobjanyan.
Stay tuned, more and more amazing news is yet to come! SmartGateVC is building a portfolio of companies that all of us will be proud of.
About SmartGateVC
Backed by Tim Draper and seasoned tech entrepreneurs, SmartGateVC is a venture capital firm targeting Armenian tech companies in Artificial Intelligence, Security and Internet of Things.
See also: iTel.am