Vietnam joins “golden triangle of start-ups” in Southeast Asia: Hong Kong newspaper

The article cited the speech by Vietnamese Minister of Plan and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung at a start-up investment forum in December 2022 as saying that in recent years, more and more FDI flows have come to Vietnam's start-ups.

In the first nine months of 2022, Vietnam’s innovative start-ups attracted about 500 million USD. Over the past two years, startups have attracted nearly 2 billion USD in foreign investment, which proved that "Vietnamese start-ups are increasingly attractive to international and regional investors."

In 2021, Vietnamese start-ups raised 1.4 billion USD in investment capital, 56% higher than the level of 894 million USD in 2019.

The Vietnam National Innovation Center estimates that the capital attraction capacity of Vietnamese start-ups will maintain an upward trend in 2023.

Thirty-nine investment funds have committed an investment of 1.5 billion USD to Vietnam in the period 2023-2025, bringing the total investment for Vietnamese start-ups to 5 billion USD during this period.

According to Vinnie Lauria, co-founder of Golden Gate Ventures, in the first 10 years of the Southeast Asian start-up ecosystem, Singapore and Indonesia were the growth drivers that led the region.

In 2022, Vietnam became the third pillar of the “golden triangle of start-ups” that created a successful combination of Vietnam's technology talent, start-up culture and rapidly developing market in the country.

Luu Can Binh, an investment partner of Vertex Ventures SEA & India Fund, also gave a positive assessment of Vietnam’s development prospects in the coming years, saying that Vietnam’s start-up ecosystem can strongly boom.

In addition, factors such as stable domestic politics, a young and highly educated workforce, developing infrastructure, digital skills, and innovation capacity, as well as the support of the Government of Vietnam create favorable conditions for Vietnamese start-ups.

The article also cited opinions by Dr. Le Hong Hiep – a senior fellow at the Vietnam Studies Program and the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Program of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak based in Singapore, as saying that the Government of Vietnam has made efforts to support start-ups, but still needs to further improve its investment environment and legal framework to lower risks for start-ups, and encourage tech talents to establish companies.

Source: VNA