09:45,
YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Podcastle company is nominated in three categories at the 2022 Webby Awards, also known as the "The Oscars of the Internet."
Podcastle Inc. Chief Operating Officer Arsen Hambardzumyan told ARMENPRESS that their competitors include global tech giants Adobe and Canva.
Podcastle enables users to conduct remote interviews without downloading any apps or tools, create, edit and enhance podcasts with a free online audio editor, remove background noise and enhance speech in a few clicks, edit audio by editing text or convert text to speech with realistic voice skins.
Podcastle is nominated in the Best Creative Production Software, Best Use of AI & ML and Best User Interface categories. The winners will be chosen from 14,000 nominees in two rounds: online voting and then by a panel of judges comprised of 2000 experts.
“Imagine an Armenian actor getting the Oscar. It’s the same for the ‘Internet Oscars’. We’d greatly promote our small country. We’ve shared the links to the voting on our Facebook account and our website, people can vote for us online by following the link, registering on the Webby website – which takes just 15-20 seconds,” Hambardzumyan said.
“We saw that people had a problem with becoming podcast hosts. They had to buy rather expensive microphones, get audio-editing trainings, they had to have a platform for downloading and broadcasting. This is a lengthy phase that people avoid. But we offer a platform that doesn’t require downloading. You just have to sign up in our web platform and easily get what you want by studying the machine learning tools that we use,” Hambardzumyan said.
Podcastle offers its tools for free with some limitations. But only $12 a month will enable users unlimited access.
Podcastle was founded 1,5 years ago and consisted only of 4 team members. Now, the company employs 40 people thanks to the investments they received.
“We got our first investment in 2020. Back then it was difficult to attract investments. Investors would search ‘Armenia’ online, they’d see that we are at war and would decide not to make investments. Nevertheless, albeit with difficulties, we were able to attract 2 million dollars in investment, which helped us to expand our team. Then we had our second investment of 7 million dollars,” Hambardzumyan said.
Podcastle founder Artavazd Yeritsyan said that together with Krisp co-founder and CEO Davit Baghdasaryan and Krisp co-founder and President Artavazd Minasyan they launched the BigStory VC Venture Fund to support startups, moreover not only with funds but also with knowledge and experience.
Interview by Karine Terteryan