In the first 10 months of 2019 alone, Vietnam’s startups attracted $750 million worth of capital, according to Minister of Science and Technology Chu Ngoc Anh at Techfest 2019.

Here are the five biggest investment deals by foreign investors in 2019

Sendo successfully called for $61 million in Series C

Start-up activities are growing fast despite the slowdown of the global economy. The gap between Vietnam and the two regional leading countries, Indonesia and Singapore, has narrowed.

The e-commerce platform belonging to the Vietnamese largest IT group FPT in November announced the completion of the Series C funding round. There were two new investors – EV Growth from Indonesia and Kasikornbank from Thailand, and the existing investors - SBI Group, BEENOS, SoftBank Ventures Asia, Daiwa PI Partners and Digital Garage.

With the additional capital, Sendo said it would expand business and make further investment in technology, including AI and machine learning.

Tiki received $75 million

In March 2019, Tiki, a marketplace successfully raised funds worth $75 million in a funding round led by Northstar Group. This is an investment fund with the value of $2 billion specializing in injecting money into the companies in the growth phase in Southeast Asia.

As of August 2018, Vietnamese investors had remained the biggest investors, holding 51.33 percent of shares in Tiki. 21.47 percent of shares belonged to Chinese investors and 27.2 percent belonged to investors with other nationalities.

Scommerce received $100 million from Temasel Holdings

On October 28, 2019, Scommerce, the logistics service provider, the holding company of Giao Hang Nhanh (GHN) and AhaMove, confirmed the investment by Temasek, the Singaporean state’s investment fund.

The company declined to reveal the exact value of the deal, but said this was the biggest funding round of the company so far.

According to DealStreetAsia, the value of the deal was $100 million.

MoMo receives $100 million in Series C funding round

The deal was made in early 2019. The US-based Warburg Pincus investment fund agreed to pour $100 million into the Vietnamese e-wallet.

Prior to that, MoMo received the investment worth $28 million from Goldman Sachs ($3 million) and Standard Chartered Private Equity ($25 million).

In Vietnam, Warburg Pincus has made four investment deals so far, including ones in Vincom Retail, Lodgis, Techcombank, and BW Industrial Development JSC. The deals all are worth $100 million and more.

VNPay got $300 million from SoftBank and GIC

This was the biggest investment deal in Vietnam’s startups in 2019.

Tran Tri Manh, president of Vnlife, the holding company of VNPay, in July confirmed the deal was wrapped up, but declined to give detailed information about the deal.

DealStreetAsia said Vision Fund of SoftBank invested $200 million, while GIC committed $100 million.

Linh Ha 

HCM City to build Centre for Innovative Startup

The HCM City Department of Science and Technology announced the approval of the municipal People’s Committee for the selection programme of an architecture design for the HCM City Centre for Innovative Startup.

Only 2 percent of startups are 'real' startups: experts

The others are just companies following traditional business models with a bit of innovation.