This year continues to witness a wave of investments into Vietnamese start-ups, with millions of dollars of money announced.
This is the list of 10 start-ups with highest investment based on public investment information, site ndh.vn reported.
Some start-ups are believed to have successfully raised capital from US$75 million to $300 million, but specific amounts were not disclosed.
1. Sendo
E-commerce platform Sendo of Sen Do Technology JSC completed a $61 million Series C funding round.
Besides previous investors, this round of fundraising has the participation of two new investors, Indonesian EV Growth and Thai Kasikornbank.
Last year, Sendo successfully mobilised $51 million in Series B round.
Tran Hai Linh, Sendo director general, said the company would use the new funding to expand its services, invest in AI technology and machine learning.
2. Lozi
Lozi secured an eight-digit funding (in US dollars) led by South Korean investment firm Smilegate in early November.
With new capital, the company expected to bring in $31 million in revenue next year.
Launched in 2013, Lozi was firstly an application that allowed users to search for cafes and eateries.
The start-up now has two applications, which are Lozi and Loship.
Lozi is a platform operating under the C2C (customer-to-customer) e-commerce business model.
Loship provides many services such as food delivery, groceries delivery, laundry and medicine delivery.
3. Yola
Yola, a Vietnamese ELT service provider, received a $10 million investment from Singapore- and India-based education fund manager Kaizen Private Equity (Kaizen PE) in August this year.
Before Kaizen PE, Yola was invested by Mekong Capital with $4.9 million in 2016.
4. Elsa Speak
Elsa Speak, an English learning application, has successfully raised $7 million in Series A round from some investors in February, leading by Gradient Ventures, a Google’s fund for AI.
The successful capital call raises Elsa Speak’s total investment capital to $12 million.
Elsa Speak was launched in 2015, co-founded by Vietnamese woman Van Dinh Hong Vu and Portuguese Xavier Anguera, an artificial intelligence and voice recognition expert.
The start-up now has four million users from 101 countries around the world, making it into the top five leading AI applications, along with Microsoft's Cortana and Google's Google Allo.
5. Leflair
Leflair, a Vietnam-based ecommerce platform, has raised $7 million in series B funding led by South Korea-based GS Shop and Cambodia-based Belt Road Capital Management in January this year.
The investment brings the company’s total funding to $12 million to date.
Leflair focuses on premium-branded products for women, men, children and homes.
6. KiotViet
KiotViet, a start-up providing point-of-sale software, announced a $6 million investment in Series A funding round in August.
The investment came from venture capital firm Jungle Ventures and online travel company Traveloka.
7. Logivan
Logivan, a logistics start-up, announced it raised $5.5 million in January this year.
The investment came from Indonesia’s Alpha JWC ventures; David Su, managing partner at Matrix Partners China and other angel investors.
Logivan also successfully called for $2.4 million from foreign investment funds led by Ethos Partners, Insignia Venture Partners and Vinacapital Ventures last year.
The latest round has raised Logivan’s funding to $7.9 million in total.
8. Kobiton
Kobiton, a US-based mobile testing platform with an R&D team in Việt Nam, has successfully raised $5.2 million in new capital to continue growing its mobile app experience business.
The round was led by BIP Capital, one of the most active and successful venture investors in the US’s south-east.
Following this successful series A round, Kobiton will focus on marketing, customer support and development.
9. Jio Health
Healthcare tech start-up Jio Health raised $5 million in a series A funding round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures in April this year.
Jio Health was founded in 2014. The company uses technology to provide on-demand healthcare services, including home doctor visits, nursing care, telemedicine, and digital medical records management.
10. Luxstay
Luxstay completed a $4.5 million bridge round of funding this year.
This is a Vietnamese travel agency platform provider, founded by Steven Nguyen in 2017.
The start-up also signed an investment and strategic co-operation with Nguyen Thanh Viet, president of Intracom; Pham Thanh Hung, vice chairman of CenGroup and M-TP Entertainment at the end of last month.
The specific amount was not disclosed. — VNS