Vietnamese startups attract foreign investors

Pham Anh Duc, the founder of ViCare

1. On September 5, Yahoo Japan, the largest Japanese fund, announced investment in Offpeak, an app which find food, beverage and dining discounts in SE Asia.

The involved parties declined to give details about the deal, but the investment capital in dollars is a seven-digit one.

Explaining the investment decision, a representative of Yahoo Japan said the fund sees great potential in the food & beverage sector in the market and the growth rate of the company.

Before Yahoo Japan agreed to pour capital into Offpeak, the project received $800,000 in investment capital from Gobi Partners just three weeks after it started Series A capital call. The founders of Offpeak also received $200,000 from Cradle, a fund belonging to the Malaysian government.

Offpeak is managed by Christian Nguyen, an overseas Vietnamese in France, who can speak six languages, and three Malaysian co-founders. The four businessmen have many years’ experience in technology and e-commerce.

2. Pham Anh Duc, the founder of ViCare, said he started the app after he and his relatives had problems looking for reliable information about healthcare services.

ViCare can answer questions like “What disease do i have? Where should I go to have healthcare services? and What do I have to do to take care of my health?

After eight months of operation, ViCare Corporation completed the second round of capital calls. Two international funds have answered its call – CyberAgent Ventures from Japan and Pix Vine Capital from Singapore - and have agreed to invest VND10 billion.

Four months ago, ViCare successfully completed the first round of capital call, receiving the capital from the investors from Hanoi and HCMC.

A representative of CyberAgent Ventures said that ViCare chose the correct way when focusing on healthcare services, a potential sector in Vietnam where people face overloading at facilities, and a lack of physicians and healthcare centers.

3. Starting from scratch, Vu Quang Trung created a website with data about prices and specifications of 10 million products.

Seven months after establishment, the website was shortlisted for the final round of the ‘Nhan Tai Dat Viet’ (Vietnamese Talents) national competition. Many investment funds from Russia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea have contacted Trung to discuss the investment.

In mid-2015, So Sanh Viet Nam JSC, which runs Websosanh, the price comparison website, received investments from Yello Shopping Media Group (YSM).

With advantages in technology, Big Data and AI applications, the website now provides information to 3.5 million users a month.