Many Vietnamese start-ups have, however, shown their resilience by successfully attracting foreign investors.

Vietnam’s Gpay e-wallet, under the G-Group Technology Corporation, received Series A funding from the Republic of Korea’s KB Financial Group early this year. It is now valued at around 18.5 million USD. The deal was considered a good start to 2021 for Vietnam’s fintech community.

Looking back over a turbulent 2020, many local start-ups still managed to call for investment despite the adverse impact of the pandemic. Some even succeeded with investments in the tens of millions of US dollars, such as the Sieu Viet Group, Propzy, and OnPoint. These are perfect examples of the resilience of Vietnamese fintech start-ups.

Vietnam moved up 13 places to 59th in global start-up ecosystem rankings in 2020. The country is aiming at becoming a leading start-up hub in Southeast Asia. However, experts said, there remains a long way to go, during which Vietnam should revise its policy framework towards more openness given globalisation, while nurturing “seed start-ups” with strong competitive capacity. The country is striving to be home to at least 10 unicorn start-ups over the course of the next decade./. VNA