SmartGateVC leads pre-seed round for ForgeFiction
We are excited to announce SmartGateVC is leading a pre-seed round for ForgeFiction, which brings in a brand new way of writing, where stories and books are written by communities, instead of individuals.
Community writing allows fiction fans to combine their ideas and create original content in the form of books, stories and entire fictional worlds. Using ForgeFiction every member of our community can contribute to the writing of the story and become a co-author of a bestseller, while earning money proportional to their contribution. The platform also provides unique tools that help users in story writing and creating immersive fictional worlds. Finished stories are sold as books and are distributed to the media industry.
Currently, the platform has 150 weekly active users, over 1000 pages of user-generated content, and 25 ongoing books.
The content generated in the platform can, later on, be used by the movie industry and video game developers.
“At ForgeFiction we see the huge creative potential communities of people have, and our goal is to give them the opportunity and tools to create a completely new and unique type of content”, says the CEO and Co-founder of the company Hrach Toneyan.
“Content created in ForgeFiction is perfect for later use by streaming services and it will be a big part of their business”, says Vazgen Hakobjanyan, Partner at SmartGateVC.
“ForgeFiction team was accepted into Armenia Startup Academy with very different idea last spring, but they changed it to the current one during the program. It’s always a pleasure to partner with such an open-minded and driven team”, says Hambardzum Kaghketsyan, Partner at SmartGateVC.
“We are proud to back this team to make their idea work. In the era where content is the king - they build a whole new channel of content generation”, says Ashot Arzumanyan, Partner at SmartGateVC.
The co-investors of the round include angel investors from Science and Technology Angel Network (STAN) and Business Angel Network of Armenia (BANA). Mariana Grigorian, Founder at VerMotus, a Limited Partner at SmartGateVC and Angel Investor at STAN, led the round within the network.
“As a group of investors, we trust the talented and dedicated team of ForgeFiction will use our support to reach ambitious goals not only in terms of business growth, but more broadly speaking in terms of creating a new market by bringing creative writing and consumption of fiction closer to the masses. Personally, I feel deeply honored to be part of this journey: observing young Armenian teams making their way to the global stage will always remain an amazingly rewarding feeling that all of us Armenians living in the diaspora deeply share!” says Mariana Grigorian.
“FAST curated STAN to be a financial capacity builder in the science and technology ecosystem - one of the three capacities alongside Intellectual, and Network capacity that are needed to have a fully functional ecosystem. We are extremely excited to support the ForgeFiction team as a majority investors and are looking forward to taking part in their growth and success. Our team of 7 STAN angel investors bring decades of AI, business, marketing, and leadership experience, providing an important smart investment component. This is a historic moment in the Armenian startup ecosystem as three important players (STAN, BANA, and SmartGateVC) join forces to invest, and we hope to see more collaboration in future investments”, says David Bequette, VP of Innovation at FAST Foundation.
“We showcased ForgeFiction to our investors having known that they have a strong team and a product with great potential. Rem Darbinyan, angel investor at BANA and founder of SmartClick AI joined the investment round and will bring his knowledge in AI to assist ForgeFiction in further development. We are happy that BANA was able to provide “smart money” for ForgeFiction“, says Grigor Hovhannisyan, Founder at BANA.
We feel very thrilled to join the journey of the founders as they build to their ambitious mission and look forward to doing what we can to be helpful to their future growth.
About SmartGateVC
Backed by Tim Draper and seasoned tech entrepreneurs, SmartGateVC is a venture capital firm targeting companies in Artificial Intelligence, Security and the Internet of Things.
