VietNamNet Bridge - More and more Vietnamese businesses who can show the feasibility of their business plans have received venture capital from foreign funds.

Dao Chi Anh, the owner of KAfe Group

Dao Chi Anh has become a hot name among the business and youth circles as the young owner of KAfe Group, the café chain for young people which has received investment capital from a foreign fund.

KAfe has received $5.5 million in capital after calling for investments from funds in London and Hong Kong, including Cassia Investments, a fund targeting consumer industries in South East Asia and China.

The investment capital would be used to implement the plan to expand The KAfe chain throughout Vietnam which would start with the opening of four new shops in HCM City, slated for the end of October. The KAfe plans to have 26 shops by the end of the year.

This is not the first time a Vietnamese startup has successfully called for venture funds. However, Anh still could surprise businessmen with her success, because Vietnamese think venture funds are only interested in technology firms.

Coc Coc is one of such technology firms. Hubert Burda Media once stirred up the public with the announcement about investment in Coc Coc, which runs a search engine called ‘Vietnam’s Google’.

In 2012, Japanese CyberAgent Ventures agreed to provide capital to Foody. Later CyberAgent Ventures, together with Pix Vine Capital, an investor from Singapore, continued injecting money into Foody. And in late 2015, Tiger Global Investment, an US-based fund, also decided to invest in Foody for its first investment in a Vietnamese startup.

CyberAgent Ventures has become well known in Vietnam with its investments in many other startups, including Vexere, a firm running vexere.com website allowing customers to book coach tickets online. 

Present in Vietnam since late 2008, the venture fund has invested in 15 firms with disbursed capital of $700,000-1 million for each firm.

Just 12 months after the establishment, Tappy, the mobile app allowing users to concurrently appear in the same place to chat, received $200,000 worth of investment capital from foreign investors.

An analyst noted that VND130 billion ($5.5 million) was the record in investment capital from a venture fund. Meanwhile, big businesses can receive much more, up to trillions of dong.

In late 2014, VinaCapital and Daiwa PI Partners announced the $45 million investment deal in IDP, a dairy producer and became the big shareholders with 70 percent of IDP’s stake.

In mid-2014, Vinamilk announced that  F&N Dairy Investments Pte Ltd (F&N) of the Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi wrapped up the deal of buying $15 million Vinamilk’s shares to become the second largest shareholder in the nation’s leading dairy producer.

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