Vietnam joins ‘golden triangle of startups’ in Southeast Asia

The article cited the speech by Vietnamese Minister of Plan and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung at a Startup Investment Forum on December 2022 as saying that in recent years, more and more FDI flows have come to Vietnam’s startups.

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

In 2021, Vietnamese startups raised $1.4 billion in investment capital, 56% higher than the level of $894 million in 2019.

The Vietnam National Innovation Centre estimates that the capital attraction capacity of Vietnamese startups will maintain an upward trend in 2023.

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

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

In 2022, Vietnam became the third pillar of the “golden triangle of startups” that created a successful combination of Vietnam’s technology talent, startup 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 startup 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 startups.

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 startups, but still needs to further improve its investment environment and legal framework to lower risks for startups, and encourage tech talents to establish companies.