Investment poured into Vietnamese startups in the first quarter of this year climbed by 34% to more than US$100 million from the same period last year, with foreign investors remaining dominant, according to recently-released Vietnam Startup report by South Korean venture fund Nextrans.

The report also showed that the number of investment deals continued to fall by 20% year-on-year in early 2021 to only 16. This figure is quite low compared to 20 in 2020 and 30 in 2019. Still encouragingly, the value of investment deals made a jump.  

International investors outperformed domestic ones in terms of both the volume of deals and the investment value. The total investment by domestic investors is less than $10 million, while the figure of foreign investors is about $100 million

Noticeably, investment capital channelled into seed funding and series A investment, the first two stages, boasted its dominance, accounting for 70% of the deals.

Fintech startups, once again, took the lead with four out of the 16 deals, making up for 40%, followed by logistics, accommodation, real estate, education, and healthcare. Both investors based both at home and aboard showed their interest in investing mainly in financial technology, e-commerce, online education, enterprise solutions and logistics.

Viet Nam is predicted to grow at the fastest rate in Southeast Asia in terms of digital financial services revenues in the next five years, climbing to $3.8 billion by 2025.

For the time being, there are close to 180 investment funds in the country, and most notable amongst them are such  ‘big boys’ as VSV Capital – Viet Nam Silicon Valley, Mekong Capital, 500 Startups Viet Nam, Viet Nam Investment Group, IDG Ventures Viet Nam and Nextrans.

Venture capital funds from Japan and South Korea are actively looking for potential startups for their potential investment plans. In 2021, large Viet Nam-based enterprises started building a startup ecosystem to launch investment drives as well as partnering with already-merged startups.

Reporting by PHONG LAN – Translating by A.T