Hovhannes Avoyan


Hovha'nnes Avoyan, born 1965, is a serial entrepreneur, investor and scholar. He is the co-founder and CEO of PicsArt, a social image editing application. He also served as President of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises of Armenia from its inception in 2000 until 2015.

Early life and education

Hovhannes Avoyan was born in 1965 in Yerevan, Armenia. He graduated from the State Engineering University of Armenia with a B.S. degree in Computer Science in 1987 and received an MA degree from the American University of Armenia in 1997.

Projects

In 2011, with his friend Artavazd Mehrabyan, he founded PicsArt, a social photo editing startup. Today, PicsArt has more than 100 million active users worldwide. In 2015-2016, the company raised $45 million from Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and others.
PicsArt employs more than 400 people and is headquartered in San Francisco.
In 2016, Hovhannes received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the American University of Armenia. In 2005, he accompanied the Bertelsmann Executives Program at Harvard Business School.
Hovhannes is supporting AI development in Armenia and establishing schools and best practices in the country to help data scientists from the country compete globally.
Hovhannes is a speaker on artificial intelligence and advocates the establishment of machine learning and data science schools in Armenia. He is a regular author and speaker on AI related topics.

Timeline

1987 – B.S. degree in Computer Science
1996 – founded CEDIT, a software development services company
2005 – founded and served as CEO of Sourcio, a software development and system integration service provider
2005 – attended the Bertelsmann Executives Program at Harvard Business School
2007 – founded and served as General Manager of Monitis Inc.
2011 – founded PicsArt, a social image editing app that has more than 90 million active monthly users and 400 employees, headquartered in San Francisco