Eight out of 14 start-ups of the Topica Founder Institute (TFI) introduced their products and called for investment at the Topica Founder Showcase 2016, held in Hanoi on August 10.
Topica Founder Showcase
These start-ups presented their products to 40 domestic and international investment funds, such as IDG Ventures, Unitus Impact, NSI Ventures and 500 Start-ups, besides KK Fund, Gobi Partners and IMJ Investment Partner.
Finally, three Vietnamese start–ups -- Homily, Fundy and Wisami -- received investments at the graduation ceremony, held on the same day as the event. However, the value of the investments has not been revealed.
According to the Topica Edtech Group, the top 15 enterprises that graduated from the TFI programme through five terms have called for 15 million USD in investments.
Some of these outstanding names are Appota, Giaytot, S3 and Kyna, besides Beeketing, Vlance, iMap and Antoree, as well as Uplevo, Atadi, Hoayeuthuong and Adtop.
The Topica Founder Institute, which is a member of the Global Founder Institute Network, is a start-up accelerator programme of the Topica Edtech Group.
Tech startup sets new trend
Technology in startup has become a new trend that Vietnamese youngsters are pursuing nowadays, heard a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City on August 13.
Head of the Department of Software Engineering under the city-based University of Science Dinh Ba Tien said technology is the field that could bring enormous opportunities for businesses to reach out the international market.
However, it requires innovation, passion and selection of suitable models to meet the market’s demand, he added.
Truong Ly Hoang Phi, Director of the Business Startup Support Centre (BSSC), said what discussed during the event are significant to policy making for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startup models.
She suggested enabling young startups to gain access to potential fields, including technology, while building staff with long-term development orientations.
The exploration of technological and innovative projects as well as the encouragement of experienced and influential figures to develop the startup ecosystem in Vietnam are recommended, she said.
Vietnam has about 1,000 startup projects on technology each year. An increasing number of organisations are investing in this field.
HCM City, one of the country’s largest economic hubs, is targeting to expand the number of enterprises in the city to 500,000 by 2020.
Currently, the 12-million-strong southern metropolis has 270,000 registered firms, including 170,000 active ones.
The Ho Chi Minh City Young Businesspeople Association (YBA) has pledged to support 1,000 creative start-up projects between 2016 and 2020.
VNA