Huge investment flows into new start-up projects

PSNews-2016 has been seen as the year of start-ups with various impressive achievements obtained by the Vietnamese start-up community. Vietnam became an ideal destination for venture investment as it was listed on the top 3 of investment attracting countries in the Southeast Asia. 

Investment attraction in the first half of 2016 increased by 105.4% in comparison to the same period last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The capital flow worth millions of dollars continued pouring into Vietnamese start-up projects. MoMo, an e-wallet service, received an investment of up to $28 million from the Standard Chartered Private Equity and the Goldman Sachs in March, 2016. After that, various start-up projects were invested in large amounts of money.

Particularly, Vntrip.vn, a hotel reservation application, received a $3 million from Fenghe Group (China) and Hancock Revocable Trust (USA); the ViCare application by Pham Anh Duc was invested in VND 10 billion by the investment funds of Japan and Singapore.

The 2016 Startup Festival
The 2016 Startup Festival

Vietnamese start-ups also made great impression on the international market. In June, 2016, Monkey Junior, an English learning application for kids, developed by Dao Xuan Hoang beat over 1,000 contestants from 100 countries and territories to win the Global Initiatives.

The Startup Festival is the biggest annual event for the start-up community. This year, the Organizing Board awarded outstanding start-ups. Particularly, the “Female Start-up of the Year” went to Vu Nguyet Anh – CEO of Rudicaf.

The “Potential Start-up” went to Loffice, giaohangnhanh and Wefit – a fitness application.

The “Favorite Start-up” went to the BigSchool Viet Nam.

The most important prize, the “Start-up of the Year” went to DesignBold run by CEO Hung Dinh.

By Duy Tien

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