Affirma Capital in February announced investment of $34 million, or VND790 billion, into Sieu Viet Group, a startup which owns the job posting websites TimViecNhanh, Vieclam24h, MyWork and ViecTotNhat.

The founders of Sieu Viet include Phan Minh Tam, chair of STI, which invested in 30Shine, Anycar and 24h.com.vn, and Xuan Minh, the director of Sieu Viet.

Sieu Viet is the fifth investment deal of Affirma Capital in Vietnam since 2014. The other four include N Kid Corporation, Online Mobile, Loc Troi Group and Golden Gate.

Also in February, Go2Joy, a hotel booking app, raised $2.5 million in a Series A funding round led by STIC Ventures, according to DealStreetAsia.

Foreign funds are still pouring millions of dollars into Vietnamese startups because many believe they will see a startup boom when the pandemic ends.

The other startups that have received capital from STIC Ventures include Tiki, Cammsys Vietnam and Nanogen Pharmacy.

Making its debut in 2017, Go2Joy (formerly Appro Mobile) makes short-term hourly hotel booking.

Waves, the sound-focused content platform founded by Kevin Cao and Ben Minh Le last year, announced a successful call for $1.2 million worth of seed capital from a partner from Singapore - Insignia Ventures Partners last February. Other investors include Hustle Fund and Skystar Capital.

Waves provides professional recording, video and audio services with modern equipment, studio, editing and marketing. The startup strives to become one of the leading platforms in Southeast Asia for podcast and recording content.

On February 17, TopDev, a recruitment network in Mobile & IT fields, received strategic investment from SaraminHR. The deal is part of the South Korean recruitment company’s global development strategy.

The value of the deal was secret, but analysts said this is a 7-digit number in US dollars.

TopDev has 300,000 profiles of developers and 5,000 regular clients who are technology firms in Vietnam and the region.

In early March, Tech in Asia reported that STI had made a strategic investment in JupViec, a home help service website, and had become the largest shareholder. Tran Tuan Tai, STI’s investment director, said the value of the deal was several million dollars.

In late March, eDoctor, a startup providing healthcare services using mobile technology, received capital from four large investment funds - CyberAgent Capital, Genesia Ventures (Japan), Bon Angels and Nextrans (South Korea).

The total investment capital was $1.2 million, including $500,000 from Shark Dzung Nguyen, director of CyberAgent Vietnam and Thailand.

Most recently, Finhay, a fintech startup, in early April received investment from Jeffrey Cruttenden, cofounder of Acorns, and the Vietnamese firm Thien Viet Securities.

Thanh Lich 

Can Tho City to build startup ecosystem

To develop a complete startup ecosystem and create favourable conditions for startups to be formed, Can Tho City People’s Committee has carried out a project supporting national innovative startup ecosystem in Can Tho in 2020.

Vietnamese startup creates blockchain-based game with highest revenue in world

The Axie Infinity game was made with blockchain technology with a high security level. It generates the highest revenue of any blockchain game in the world.