Vazgen Hakobjanyan is a Co-Founder and Partner (Fund I) at SmartGateVC. See sector focus and contact routes.
Vazgen Hakobjanyan is a Co-Founder and Partner (Fund I) at SmartGateVC, a pre-seed deep tech venture capital firm based in Yerevan, Armenia, where he also serves as an Assistant Professor teaching Machine Learning at Yerevan State University. His investment thesis targets early-stage companies at the intersection of AI with Healthcare, Biotech, Security, IoT, and frontier technologies like brain-computer interfaces and Physical AI. SmartGateVC typically invests ticket sizes up to $100,000 in pre-seed companies, functioning as a micro-VC with a target fund size of $3 million. While the firm has invested in over 25 companies, including many Skydeck alumni, specific named portfolio companies led by Hakobjanyan are not explicitly detailed in available sources. The fund is thesis-driven, requiring technical prototypes and strong founding team credentials at the pre-seed stage, with Tim Draper serving as the first limited partner. Hakobjanyan’s distinctive perspective emphasizes Armenia as an engineering hub for deep tech, and he actively discusses global perspectives on investing in AI startups through public talks.
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