VIETNAM STARTUP WHEEL COMPETITION 2019

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With a young population showing a highly entrepreneurial spirit, Vietnam is home to a fastest-growing startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia in recent years. The number of startups has increased ― seven times from 400 in 2012 to nearly 3,000 in 2018 involved in sectors such as fintech, food tech, healthcare, and e-commerce. In 2018, 92 investment deals totalling $889 million were struck with fintech accounting for the largest chunk of the funding which was three times higher than the US$291 million reported in 2017(1).

WHY VIETNAM?

Golden population structure

According to Hootsuite and We Are Social’s report(2), Vietnam has 96 million people with 45% of which is under 30 year of age, 67% are Internet users, 57% are active social media users and 73% are unique mobile phone users. The annual growth rate in Vietnam is remarkable ? the percentage of Internet users increases by 28% (or 14 million people) and 20% for active social users.

Moreover, Vietnamese attitudes towards technology is very positive and with great potential, 61% of Vietnamese people believe that new technologies offer more opportunities than risks and 63% prefer to complete task digitally whenever possible. This indicates great opportunities for new product ranges focusing on this consumer segment.

Government initiatives

A recent Pew survey(3) highlighted that as much as 95% of the Vietnamese population support free-market capitalism―a higher percentage than in any other country surveyed, including the United States.

The period 2016-2017 recognized many efforts and activities of the Government in promoting the startup ecosystem. Most recently, the Law on Technology Transfer(4) was revised to promote technological advances and the commercialization of technologies such as AI, IoT, Edtech, O2O, E-commerce, FinTech, and AgriTech. This is a very important law in transferring domestic research results, technology, from Vietnam to abroad and vice versa.

Talent

According to Hackerrank report, the Ho Chi Minh City University of Science is the third best in the world ahead of computer science powerhouses UC Berkeley and Waterloo(5). Vietnam is now known as a small but mighty outsourcing powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific; ranking 6th place in “The Index, by Country” report of Global Services Location Index(6), while India lead the Index and Thailand ranked the 8th place. Young, ambitious Vietnamese tech graduates have garnered the attention of large multinational corporations like Intel and Facebook, looking to recruit talented coders. To add onto this, thousands of Vietnamese alumni and foreign startups choose Vietnam as their chosen place to set up their business such as Mitfit, GotIt, Elsa Speak, etc. bringing entrepreneurial ideas, technical expertise, and worldly knowledge contributing to Vietnam’s development.

Global attention and local startup ecosystem support

According to the prestigious startup magazine CBInsights, from 2012 until now, Vietnam, ranked fourth in the amount of attracting investment capital, after Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. There are more than 40 international venture capital funds operating in Vietnam, typically IDG Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, Smilegate Investment, Gobi Partners, 500 Startups, etc. KrASIA reported in December that Vietnam has become Asia’s hottest investment destination after attracting US$17 billion in FDI commitments in 2017 and US$13.48 billion as of August 2018.

In terms of startup support organizations, there are approximately 30 business incubators and 10 business association operating in Vietnam. A number of big names are Business Startup Support Centre (“BSSC”), Saigon Hi-Tech Park Incubation Center; Da Nang Entrepreneurship Support (“DNES”); Hanoi Information Technology Innovation Business Incubator ... In the private sector, we can mention some typical names like Vietnam Silicon Valley, Topica Founder Institute, VIISA, etc.

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