Growing up in Soviet Armenia in the early 1980, Hovhannes Avoyan dreamed of going to the state-run art school, but he failed the exam.Rejected, he picked a different creative path–computer science, focusing on the first generation of artificial intelligence and machine learning.Over the next 30 years Avoyan built and sold three software start-ups, becoming one of the leaders of Armenia’s burgeoning tech scene. In 2011 Avoyan built a mobile app offering a few tech tools to help his daughter improve her pictures, who had got harsh comments on her drawing.Ten years later, Avoyan’s act of parental encouragement has exploded into San Francisco-based Picsart, one of the world’s most popular apps. The design and editing app has been downloaded more than 1 billion times across 180 countries.It’s about to get bigger. Today, Avoyan announced his 800-person start-up has raised a $130 million Series C.Check out the full report on Forbes.
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