{"id":775,"date":"2019-11-23T13:25:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-23T13:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/?p=775"},"modified":"2023-06-28T09:49:44","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T09:49:44","slug":"heir-to-the-ancient-khmer-empire-modern-day-cambodia-is-now-benefiting-from-relative-stability-having-endured-civil-war-and-the-murderous-rule-of-the-khmer-rouge-in-the-1970s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/?p=775","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam’s young tech talent pulls foreign funds to booming startup …"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n
\n

‘Flappy Bird’ Kicks Off Booming Foreign Investments in Vietnam’s Startup Scene<\/h1><\/div><\/div>
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

The country is becoming a major player in the tech industry, and big financial players are taking notice.<\/p>

BY REUTERS <\/a>\u2022

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Hoang Dinh Nam | Getty Images<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Vietnam’s tech startups are emerging as a force to be reckoned with as foreign private equity funds bet the country’s talented young brains will yield more successes like the international hit game Flappy Bird.<\/p>

Just last month, financial powerhouses Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered PLC raised their investment in the operator of e-wallet MoMo by $28 million, while Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist 500 Startups announced a $10 million Vietnam-focused fund.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

One of 500 Startups’ shoestring investments is in automated marketing service Beeketing, founded by college drop-out Truong Manh Quan, 26, who estimates revenue this year of $2 million predominantly from customers in the United States.<\/p>\n

“We thought we’ll invest in something like 10 to 20 companies over a 12-month period,” said 500 Startups partner Eddie Thai. “But it quickly became clear, there’s a lot more good companies to invest in.”<\/p>\n

The startup boom is the latest chapter of Vietnam’s growing presence in the global tech industry. In the three years since Hanoi-based .GEARS released Flappy Bird, Vietnam emerged from relative obscurity to become the Southeast Asian production hub of South Korean giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, global tech firms that have long had factories in Vietnam — such as LG Electronics Inc., Panasonic Corp., and Toshiba Corp. — have also been expanding into research and development.<\/p>\n

Part of Vietnam’s appeal is a cheaper workforce than in China, as well as membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc and free trade deals with the European Union, plus incentives aimed at luring investment away from neighbors.<\/p>\n

Of particular interest to venture capitalists, however, is Vietnam’s tech-savvy population with a median age of just 30.<\/p>\n

“Vietnam has the highest-performing computer science students I’ve ever encountered,” said Neil Fraser, a software engineer at Alphabet Inc’s Google, who visited local schools.<\/p>\n

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranks Vietnamese 15-year-olds above peers in the U.S., Australia and Britain in science and maths.<\/p>\n

“The exercises I watched them solve … would be considered challenging problems for a Google hiring interview,” Fraser said.<\/p>\n

Ecommerce<\/h2>\n

Data covering Vietnamese startups is scarce, but Singapore-based startup community Tech in Asia – itself a startup with investors including Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp – reckons there are about 1,500 in operation. That number, relative to population, represents a higher concentration than the 2,100 in Indonesia, 2,300 in China and 7,500 in India.<\/p>\n

Startups in Vietnam, like Indonesia, thrive with little government support beyond legal advice and $10,000 cash under a scheme dubbed Vietnam Silicon Valley. In contrast, China announced a $6.5 billion fund mainly for tech and green energy startups last year, while India pledged $1.5 billion in January.<\/p>\n

“I plan to grow this company for five years then sell it,” said Beeketing’s Quan. “Then I may become an angel investor myself.”<\/p>\n

Most of Vietnam’s startups are in e-commerce, a sector where sales grew around 35 percent last year to $4 billion, and whose 2.7 percent contribution to overall retail sales indicates ample room for growth.<\/p>\n

Supporting e-commerce are tech-related logistics startups such as Giaohangnhanh which helped reduce overall logistics costs in Vietnam to a fifth of gross domestic product last year from a fourth just one year earlier.<\/p>\n

Other startups include the operator of food-finder app Lozi that received a combined seven-figure investment from DesignOne Japan Inc and Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures.<\/p>\n

Tran Minh Son, one of four Lozi founders, quit university in Pennsylvania to concentrate on the app.<\/p>\n

“It was like cutting my legs off so I’ve no way back,” he said. “My parents complained quite a lot. They said, ‘You’re not my son – move out’.”<\/p>

Lozi, launched in 2012, now boasts 600,000 registered users and 4 million unique visits each month.<\/p>

(Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Martin Petty and Christopher Cushing)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n


<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Flappy Bird’ Kicks Off Booming Foreign Investments in Vietnam’s Startup Scene The country is becoming a major player in the tech industry, and big financial players are taking notice. BY REUTERS \u2022 APR 13, 2016 Hoang Dinh Nam | Getty Images Vietnam’s tech startups are emerging as a force to be reckoned with as foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vezole.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}