Armenia Startup Academy graduates: ForgeFiction

American University of Armenia held a demo day for the second batch of Armenia Startup Academy accelerator on May 30, which included 12 startups.

Itel.am tells about the second batch of Armenia Startup Academy graduates in these series.

ForgeFiction is a blockchain-based platform, currently in development stage, that is designed to help people collaborate and create books (stories, novels), comic books, sketches and paintings together.

The startup was founded by Hrach Toneyan, Gayane Gasparyan, Karen Shahnazaryan and Areg Vardanyan.

They have told Itel.am the platform will aim to attract book lovers and fans of fantasy genre.

The users will be able to put together the chronology of the events of their story, create characters and develop them with help from other users.

photo © Armenian Startup Academy

“Once the worlds are created, any member of the platform can suggest new stories set in the given world. The users will develop it together. Each participant gives a version for the first chapter and other members can vote which one should be selected. The chapter with the most votes becomes the part of the final version of the story. The next chapters are selected by the same principle until the book is complete,” said the ForgeFiction team.

The book will be monetized once finished.

As for application of blockchain in the platform, the developers believe it will allow them to both protect the author’s rights and divide the profits between the authors efficiently.

ForgeFiction team has a message for future Armenia Startup Academy participants: never stop working on your startup through the entire program.

The startup’s plans for 2018 are to get investment and launch their project.

Armenia Startup Academy is initiated by Catalyst Foundation and implemented in the framework of the EU4Business Support to SME Development (SMEDA) Project, which is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ’s Private Sector Development in South Caucasus Programme. SMEDA is part of the EU4Business and EU4Innovation initiatives of the European Union.

Narine Daneghyan