Venture investment funds seek

 

Investors, for example, are interested in Appota, one of nine South East Asian digital content startups that most deserve investment, valued at millions of dollars.

A Singaporean and a Japanese venture funds have obtained the agreements on investing money in the company. Declining to reveal the names of the two funds, but Do Tuan Anh, CEO of Appota said the fund would not only bring capital, but also other important values, including the advices on long term business strategy.

According to Anh, there are five venture investment funds officially operating in Vietnam. Besides, there are some other funds making investment in Vietnam though they do not have head offices in Vietnam.

The first foreign venture fund in Vietnam is IDG Ventures Vietnam (IDGVV). The fund injected money into many Vietnamese startups 10 years ago, many of which have become big businesses like VNG, VC Corp and Vat Gia JSC.

At that time, it was very difficult to approach Vietnamese startups, because there was no incubator or the training program for startups.

Things are getting much easier these days thanks to the establishment of incubators and the larger connection network.

In Asia, Vietnam is believed to have more advantages than some other Asian countries in developing internet and mobile services thanks to the young population that easily approach new services.

Though there exists a gap in development between urban and rural areas, the digital gap between areas in Vietnam has narrowed rapidly.

Nguyen Hong Truong, vice president of IDGVV, said international investors see the all of these factors as great advantages of Vietnam.

With the nation’s advantages and the dynamism of young entrepreneurs, the startup movement in Vietnam has been growing more rapidly than in other regional countries.

There still exists a big problem for Vietnamese startups: it is more difficult to access official capital sources in Vietnam than other developed countries, where the international capital sources are always ready for the disbursement.

IDGVV has invested in 40 businesses which provide mobile and online services, technology, media, entertainment and education. Most of them have witnessed the stable high growth rate of over 30 percent over the last two years.

Of the existing venture funds in Vietnam, IDGVV is believed to be the most “venturous fund” which accepts high risks when making investment decisions.

According to Dau tu, DFJV, the fund present in Vietnam since 2007, has invested in 10 businesses since then. The newspaper quoted DFJV’s managing director Than Trong Phuc as saying there are not many Vietnamese businesses can bring high profits, while it is not easy to call for capital, though the investors from the US, Europe and Asia now tend to inject money in Vietnam.

While IDGVV is believed to be the fund which laid the foundation for the first venture investment wave in Vietnam, CyberAgent Adventures (CAV) from Japan is considered the factor that has kicked off the second wave.

While both IDGVV and DFJV did not make any outstanding investment deals in the last two years, CAV has invested in 17 businesses by the first quarter of 2014, of which three deals were made in the first quarter of 2014 alone.