According to the report, the deal value last year surged sharply by 42% against the previous year.Vietnam’s two largest start-up deals last year were of Foody and Tiki, which valued at $118 million, accounting for more than 40% of the country’s total start-up deals value.
Tiki has been so far invested some $71 million
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In early December last year, the media reported that South Korea’s STIC Investment Inc would pour approximately $10 million into Tiki.vn. STIC is an international venture capital firm, incorporated in 1999, with investments in over 360 companies. The firm has grown into a private equity firm handling over $4.2 billion.
Tiki.vn has just received VND1 trillion ($44 million) from JD.com to serve its plans to expand its operations.
Before STIC’s investment, VNG, which is the biggest investor of Tiki.vn, held 38% of the shares.
Tiki was established in 2010 as a startup e-bookstore but has since diversified to sell phones, tablets, digital devices, electrical appliances, toys, and souvenirs. Tiki.vn ranks fourth in the list of the leading e-commerce websites in Vietnam, according to an iPrice report. The added capital from STIC will help Tiki to consolidate its financial capacity to continue competition with heavyweights like Sea’s Shoppee Vietnam and Alibaba’s Lazada Vietnam.
Last year, Singapore-based consumer Internet group Sea Limited also acquired 82% of Vietnamese gourmet media platform Foody Corporation for around $64 million.
Sea had bought a controlling interest in an unnamed Vietnamese startup operating restaurant booking and food delivery services.. The transaction was completed in July 2017, Sea said in its NYSE listing prospectus on September 22 last year.
The latest public announcement regarding the relationship between Sea and Foody was a Series B round Foody raised from the Southeast Asia’s unicorn, then Garena, in 2015.
A foreign entity named Airview Investment Pte Ltd at the address of 1 Fusionopolis Place, Singapore, is currently holding 415,652 ordinary shares of Foody, or an 82% stake, according to a business registration form dated September 20.
“We intend to pursue strategic investment and acquisition opportunities in order to grow our user base, deepen our market penetration and further expand our offerings, including complementary services and products,”
Sea highlighted in the listing registration form, adding that the acquisition in Vietnam helped expand its payment platform AirPay, which was launched in Vietnam in 2014. Sea is one of Southeast Asia’s first unicorns.
Foody, founded in 2012, has become one of the biggest success stories in the Vietnamese startup space. It secured seed and Series A investments from Japanese VC firm Cyberagent Ventures and Pix Vine Capital. Sea was the Series B investor in July 2015, while US-based Tiger Global Management invested in Foody’s Series C round just three weeks later.
Besides the deal, Sea also acquired two Vietnamese start-ups in fintech and logistics at a total value of some $50 million but the deals were not made public.
Besides the three above deals with value of each deal worth over $20 million, Vietnam’s start-up market last year also saw 61 deals with each valued at less than $1 million, 17 deals each valued at $1-5 million, 8 deals each valued at $5-10 million and 3 deals each valued at $10-20 million.
E-commerce, Fintech and Foodtech were sectors receiving the highest investment capital.
The report also showed that Japan’s Cyber Agent last year exited successfully all stake from two Vietnamese start-ups of Foody and CleverAds besides a part from Tiki and Vexere.
