The fifth season of Shark Tank Vietnam, the reality show for start-ups, begins this week on VTV3 and will be broadcast every Sunday.

It attracted thousands of start-ups and the 56 most outstanding have been selected for the show.

This year the jury or ‘sharks’ will be Pham Thanh Hung, deputy chairman of Cen Land and chairman of Cenhomes.vn; Do Lien, founder of LIAN; Nguyen Xuan Phu, chairman of SUNHOUSE Group; Nguyen Hoa Binh, chairman of NextTech; Le Hung Anh, founder and managing director of BIN Corporation Group; Thai Van Linh, managing director of TVL Group, and Louis Nguyen, chairman and general director of Saigon Asset Management.

Besides enabling start-ups to seek investment, Shark Tank is also a forum for young companies to advertise their products to the country.

Last year it attracted applications from many Vietnamese start-ups abroad who wanted to expand to Viet Nam.

Despite the huge challenges posed by COVID-19 contracts were signed to invest in Coolmate, Vua Cua, AnHome, and Blusaigon.

Viet Nam is a dynamic market that ranked third in the Southeast Asian start-up eco-system behind only Indonesia and Singapore.

Despite the pandemic, over 116,000 new companies were established last year, and Shark Tank is expected to provide a boost to investment in the country.

Organisers TV Hub and VTV Digital said the show has attracted support from major companies like Cen Land, EuroStyle, BIN Corporation Group, Nextpay, LIAN, and Sunhouse.

Since starting in Japan in 2001, Sharktank has gone to many countries and territories and attracted 300 million viewers.

In the US it receives an average of 250,000 applicants every season, with 48 per cent succeeding in raising funds from investors so far. — VNS