The Syndicate

by BANA

We are a group of business angels investing in world-class Armenian founders

JOIN as INVESTOR JOIN as FOUNDER

Why we created the Syndicate

For the angel investors

Deal flow. The lead takes care of negotiating deal terms, performing due diligence and handling all the paperwork.
Access to a large pool of startups from Seed to Series B+
Being able to access the most coveted deals without a big ticket size

For the startups

Ticket size $100K+
Just one line in the cap table
A large network of business angels from around the world

Portfolio

References

" I really liked working with Sona and Aksel to quickly close my round. They were able to raise $200k within 48hours."

Narek Gevorgyan

Founder at Coinstats

" It’s been a real pleasure working with Sona and Aksel which made it very easy to invest in Armenian startups such as Coinstats. I highly recommend working with The Syndicate."

Ruben Abdalian

Sales Executive at Dell

About Us

BANA Angels and Aksel Piran joined forces to make it possible for individual angels to invest with ease in the best startups with global ambitions from Armenia.

BANA is the first and most active angel network in Armenia. BANA aims at giving access to financing to great Armenian entrepreneurs. Aksel Piran, a member since 2019, was surprised by the quality and very strong global focus of the startups emerging in Armenia and wanted to promote this fledgling and promising deal flow to investors around the world.

We are supporting startups in Armenia and the region in their global ambitions. The startups are headquartered outside their home country in global tech centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. The Syndicate by BANA aims at having 3-4 startups per year, at rounds ranging from Seed to Series B.

We are looking for companies with a very large addressable market, and global ambitions that enjoy the support of the VCs and business angels with the best track records from around the world.

BANA and Aksel Piran, through their experience and connections in the sector, have developed a multidimensional network of field experts and entrepreneurs. We are ready to advise startups and involve the necessary people/connections to accelerate their growth.

The Team

Sona Veziyan

Director at BANA Angels

Associate at Formula VC

Aksel Piran

Serial Entrepreneur and Angel Investor

Founder at Euclide

About the Armenian startup ecosystem

Armenia’s tech sector has grown more than 20% per year on average in the past 10 years and a solid pool of local startups has been emerging with venture-backed names such as Picsart, Krisp, Superannotate, Sololearn, Teamable, Activeloop, CodeSignal, Renderforest… $200M+ has been invested in local startups in the past 5 years by prominent investors like Sequoia, SutterHill Ventures, LearnCapital, trueventures, Sierra ventures, Foundation capital etc.

A host of international tech giants such as VMware, Xilinx, Oracle, Cisco, Synopsis, TeamViewer, National Instruments… have set up offices and created a fertile ground and pool of talents making it possible for new startups to emerge.

Armenia was the former center of tech and innovation of the Soviet Union: 30% of tech innovation was originated in Armenia, a country that only represented 1.5% of USSR total population.