In early February Affirma Capital announced an investment of $34 million, or VND790 billion, in Sieu Viet Group.

SIeu Viet, the owner of TimViechNhanh, Vieclam24h, MyWork and ViecTotNhat, which operates 4 leading online job posting portals, targets the white collar job segment in Vietnam.

Also in February, DealStreetAsia reported that Go2Joy, a new hourly/daily hotel booking app, successfully called $2.5 million worth of capital from STIC Ventures and other investors.

In early March, Tech in Asia reported that STI has wrapped up a strategic investment deal in JupViec, a platform which connects households with demand for domestic help and workers.

Prior to that, JupViec successfully called for capital from the US Patamar Capital in 2018 and CyberAgent Ventures in 2015.

In late April OnPoint, which provides services to support the e-commerce development, successfully called for $8 million in capital in Series A round from some investors, headed by South Korean Kiwoom Fund and DAIWA-SSIAM II.

A number of startups have had to shut down because of Covid-19, but many others are growing well after successfully calling for capital.

More recently, in June, Propzy, a proptech startup, also announced success in calling for $25 million from the investors headed by Gaw Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asi. The other investors included Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures, Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare and Insignia.

Also in June, F88, which provides loans with mortgaged assets, stated it received VND140 billion more, or $6 million, from two international funds – Mekong Enterprise Fund III and Granite Oak.

The cinema chain Beta Cinemas has announced an agreement on capital contribution worth $8 million from Daiwa PI Partners from Japan.

Representatives of startups said the money will be used to expand their market share and provide added value services.

Phung Anh Tuan, president of F88, said the money from the two strategic shareholders would be used to enlarge the network of F88 transaction points and increase outstanding loans.

According to Bui Quang Minh, CEO of Beta Media, Beta plans to open 50 cinemas across the country in the next few years. It will also push up movie distribution and production activities.

While the managers of the startups are optimistic about their business performance after receiving capital, they understand that they are facing challenges as the global economy has been hit hard by Covid-19.

Propzy, for example, targets the market segment of real estate products valued at less than VND3 million and in order to make profit, it needs to have very large transaction scale. Therefore, expanding is a must, but this will bring high risks in market and management capability.

Thanh Mai 

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