Business

Domestic firms urged to engage more in Vietnamese startups

Domestic corporations are urged to invest more in Vietnamese startups which has mostly drawn attention from foreign venture capital investors, heard at a talk on investment prospects in the innovative startup market in Ho Chi Minh City.
Domestic firms urged to engage more in Vietnamese startups ảnh 1Illustrative photo. (Source: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) – Domestic corporations are urgedto invest more in Vietnamese startups which has mostly drawn attention fromforeign investors, heard at a talk on investment prospects in the innovativestartup market in Ho Chi Minh City.

The event was hosted by Saigon Innovation Hub (Sihub) incollaboration with Viet Lotus JSC on January 10 afternoon.

Innovative startups in Vietnam mostly rely on their owners’self-support and foreign resources, said Pham Hong Quat, head of theNational Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Development.Data shows that investment in Vietnamese startups hit a record high of over 1.3billion USD last year but a majority of the funding came from foreign ventures.

Domestic resources, though abundant, have not beenunleashed, Quat said, urging that Vietnamese high-performing corporations will betterengage in innovation and tech startup projects in the country.

Domestic firms urged to engage more in Vietnamese startups ảnh 2Nhập mô tả cho ảnh
These corporations, which are the country’s largestresources, mainly use imported technologies while many local technologies havefailed to get commercialised, he noted. “So we all expect major Vietnamesecompanies will be the ones to “order” solutions from startups and the first touse the products.”

Investment into Vietnamese startups nosedived by 60 percentto 317 million USD in 2020 from 861 million USD due to impacts of COVID-19. The figure bounced backstrongly to a record high of more than 1.3 billion USD last year.

Vietnam is home to 3,800 startups but only 100 of them wereable to raise funding annually on average. In 2021, just 147 projects succeededin funding raising even though there are 200 capital ventures in the country.

During the event, Sihub and Viet Lotus signed an agreementto boost the development of ecosystem for innovative startups in the comingtime./.
VNA
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