In the press conference of the national investment event “Homsafar Houshmand”, the organizers and some investment and innovation actors announced the beginning of the call for recruitment of artificial intelligence startups, the two-week screening program and holding the closing ceremony in the last week of January at the same time as the Tehran International Artificial Intelligence Exhibition; The event, which they said is supposed to reduce the risk of investing in AI by bringing investors together, and speed up the team’s path to evaluation.
Inviting investors to reduce risk and increase cooperation
At the beginning of the meeting, Mehdi Itarinia, Vice President of Venture Capital, said that the goal of this program is to bring the two sides of the ecosystem closer together, i.e. teams and investors, and said: Both sides should be together so that investment in teams related to intelligentization will come to fruition. Referring to the relative stagnation of Iran’s investment ecosystem after the waves of the early and mid-1990s, he explained: This recession has affected both the investor and the teams, and it is natural for investors to seek to reduce risk and diversify their portfolios.
According to him, “Smart Companion” tries to advance the process of finding a team, evaluation and investment in a collaborative way and even prefers to be the lead investor of another professional organization in some cases.
Focusing on Sid and Pishasid teams
Itsarinia also announced the formation of a group focused on venture capital investment in the field of intelligence and artificial intelligence and said: This group has been operating for about a year, has invested in two cases so far and has advanced the investigation of teams independently of this event. He emphasized that the main focus of the event is on seed and pre-seed stage teams, although higher level teams are also seen among the applicants, and within ten days of the start of the call, dozens of teams have expressed their desire to invest.
Reza Qavamipour, the CEO of Raymon Technology Development Company and the event host, explained about the implementation process: The call for Iran’s first national artificial intelligence investment event has been published and by the time of the press conference, about 70 startups from all over the country have registered. Tehran’s share in the registrations is high and it is supposed to strengthen the publication of the call in other cities.
Qavamipour explained: first the initial evaluation will be done and then the screening process will begin with online meetings. According to him, screening takes about two weeks and finally 10 teams are selected based on scores to present at the final meeting.
Concluding at the same time as the international exhibition of artificial intelligence
According to Qavamipour, the conclusion of the event will be held in the last week of January, most likely between January 22 and 25; The time is at the same time as the International Exhibition of Artificial Intelligence in Tehran International Exhibition.
He emphasized that the conclusion is not the end of the road, and after that, more serious meetings for investment with teams and additional meetings with the presence of various institutions and other investors will continue.
According to him, the focus of the event is on the intelligentization of industries, but this framework is not restrictive and any team that creates value in the field of artificial intelligence can enter the investment process.
Technology acceleration and artificial intelligence financing challenges
In another part of the meeting, Alireza Samii, the CEO of “Alfaba”, pointed out the increasing speed of technological changes and said: “Change cycles have become shorter, and this issue creates challenges in governance, education and financing, because technology is replaced by new versions before maturity.”
He emphasized that rapid changes, easier reverse engineering with nocode and locode tools, ethical and legal costs, and limited infrastructure, especially in the field of processing, are the most important obstacles to investing in AI.
According to Samiei, new support models should enable rapid MVP construction instead of lengthy evaluations so that investment decisions are made based on actual output.
Changing evaluation glasses in artificial intelligence investment
In the panel meeting, Ahmadreza Sadeghi, a member of the executive board, said: “Investing in artificial intelligence startups requires a change of perspective and cannot wait until traction is achieved like traditional models.”
He emphasized: If VCs and CVCs enter this field, in addition to cash capital, they should also pay attention to processing and data infrastructure, because many industrial applications cannot be developed without multi-year data and clean data.
Sadeghi also considered verifying the ownership of models and data as one of the serious challenges of investing in AI and said: This issue forces investment teams to have a more technical approach to evaluation.
Diginext’s look; Invest in the solution, not just the technology
Homayoun Khavari, Diginext’s growth manager, said: “In my view, “investment in artificial intelligence” as a general title does not make sense and we should invest in solutions; It means identifying the real problems of the industry and paving the way to the market and income with support beyond money, such as technical and product mentorship.
He also stressed the role of the government in heavy infrastructure investments such as data centers and said: This sector is usually beyond the capacity of the private sector.
Synchronizing or lagging behind the wave of artificial intelligence
In the conclusion of the meeting, the organizers emphasized that “Smart Companion” is supposed to help reduce risk and increase the speed of decision-making in artificial intelligence investment by identifying and screening teams and creating a platform for cooperation among investors. The common message of the speakers was that without data, infrastructure and accurate technical evaluation of ownership of models and data, investing in AI will not work and overcoming the ecosystem stagnation will only be possible with networking, co-investment and support beyond funding.
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