Illustrative image (Source: VNA)Singapore (VNA) – “Vietnam is shapingup to be Southeast Asia’s next hottest startup ecosystem” is the title of anarticle recently posted on the website of TechinAsia – the largestEnglish-language technology media company in Singapore that focuses on Asia.
According to the article, Singapore andIndonesia have traditionally dominated Southeast Asia’s startup scene. But now,a new contender is emerging. It is Vietnam.
The fact that Vietnam has one of thefastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world might come as a surprise tosome because only a decade ago, Vietnam was practically a nonentity on thisfront.
The article quoted Eddie Thai, general partnerat 500 Startups Vietnam, as saying from a poor country with GDP per capita ofbarely over 2,000 USD and struggling to create an ecosystem for the fewdisconnected founders and even fewer active angles and venture capitalists,Vietnam has now almost caught up with Singapore and Indonesia’s startup growthrate
According to TechinAsia’s data, the totalfunding amount for all startups in Vietnam was just 6 million USD in 2013.However, five years later, Vietnam’s startups scored 193 million USD thanks toa number of deals in mature companies.
That year, the biggest sum of money went toYeah1Network, a multichannel content network that netted an estimated 100million USD from a group of investors.
Online education provider Topica EdTech Groupand e-commerce platform Sendo have also received a lot of attention andfunding, snapping up 50 million USD and 51 million USD respectively, accordingto TechinAsia.
The article said 2019 is already shaping up tobe a big year with private equity firm Warburg Pincus investing about 100million USD in payments firm Momo.
The completion of these big deals is animportant indicator, the article said, adding that it offers early-stageinvestors a chance to sell their stakes and realise their gains, which couldeventually drive even more investments into Vietnam.
Data from Topica Founder Institute (TFI), astartup accelerator programme based in Vietnam and Thailand, showed that thetotal deal value for Vietnamese tech firms in 2018 was closer to 900 millionUSD, compared to the 291 million USD in 2017.
Thai from 500 Startups Vietnam said Vietnamcould be in the top three in the world by the number of engineers in fiveyears.
At present the country has around 250,000engineers and the number of tech-related jobs has also doubled in the lastthree years.
According to Thai, support from Vietnam’sgovernment is an asset for startup development.
In 2016, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucapproved the Supporting National Innovative Start-up Ecosystem to 2025 Project,also known as Project 844. Among its goals is to develop a legal system andnational e-portal for startups by 2020 and give funding to 200 startupenterprises.
In January 2018, the Law on Support for Smalland Medium-Sized Enterprises also came into effect, which details how startupscan get help in areas such as technology transfer, training, trade promotion,investment, preferential loans, and incentives for venture capital funds, henoted.
The article also mentioned challenges thatVietnam could encounter ahead. For example, the country will need to prove thatit can create wave after wave of high-value tech companies.
It suggested regulations and processes aroundthe local startup ecosystem can be further streamlined so that Vietnamesestartups can be agile and aggressive enough to compete with foreigncounterparts.-VNA
VNA
