HANOI, Vietnam, Feb. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ThinkZone Ventures announces ThinkZone Fund II with $60 million in fund size, the largest local venture capital fund in Vietnam thus far, to support the growth of Vietnamese startups.
In recent years, the Vietnam startup ecosystem has been more dynamic than ever, attracting a huge amount of investments in tech startups. In 2021, Vietnam recorded a total venture capital investment of up to 2.48 billion USD (according to a report by DealstreetAsia), nearly 24 times higher than 2016's figure ($105 million). This number is expected to keep increasing in the coming years, as Bain & Company's 2021 report predicts that Vietnam will be the country to have the highest growth of the Internet economy in Southeast Asia by 2030 (11 times higher than the current market size). This potential opens up great opportunities that attract domestic and foreign investors in Vietnamese startups, with a total of 108 investors in 2020 (3 times higher than 2016).
However, most of these venture capital funds come from abroad, with limited local resources to support Vietnamese startups. This also results in more complicated investment processes such as setting up a legal entity in Singapore, as well as legal processes for an investment license in other countries. Moreover, besides financial capital, startups also need lots of other support such as knowledge, experience, distribution channels, customer access and legal. These are the very advantages of local investors from Vietnam.
Stemming from those facts, ThinkZone II Fund was founded by ThinkZone Ventures and other notable Vietnamese conglomerate owners specialised in various verticals such as finance, retail, manufacturing, agriculture and F&B. With resources from the ecosystem of these conglomerates, ThinkZone II Fund can provide a huge amount of support to accelerate the growth of startups, and further to create sustainable development for the economy.
About ThinkZone Fund II
With a total committed fund size of up to $60 million, ThinkZone Fund II is the largest venture capital fund in tech startups founded by Vietnamese entrepreneurs and notable conglomerate owners. ThinkZone Ventures will invest in tech startups in various verticals from Pre-Seed to Series A (up to 3 million USD per startup). With huge financial resources, ThinkZone Fund II is ready to accompany founders who have great vision, passion and ambition to create products that create positive impacts for the society.
Besides financial resources, the biggest advantage of ThinkZone Fund II compared to other VC funds is the huge support from large Vietnamese conglomerates in many fields such as IPA Investments, Phu Thai Holdings, Stavian Group. In which:
- IPA Investments is a leading corporation in investment in many verticals such as finance, securities, banking, real estates and energy. Among the companies that have received investment from IPA, the most prominent is VNDirect. IPA Invesments is a founding shareholder of VNDIRECT Securities JSC, the Vietnam's top 2 securities companies that provides a wide range of services from securities brokerage to investment banking.
- Phu Thai Holdings Group JSC is a leading multi-industry investment group in Vietnam with the outstanding strengths in the field of distribution and retailing of various products from luxury cars, fashion, industrial machinery and engines, veterinary drugs, pharmaceuticals to FMCGs...
With the advantage of having more than 30 member companies, wide logistics & distribution network, nationwide customer base, as well as close and reliable partnerships with major corporations in the world, Phu Thai Holdings Group has huge resources to support startups in developing domestic business and expanding to the international market.
- Stavian Group is a multinational multi-industry corporation and a leading distributor of primary plastic resins in Asia – Pacific region and the world. The Group is also known as one of the leading manufacturers of eco-friendly biodegradable packaging in Vietnam. Established in 2009, Stavian Group currently has branches and business networks in more than 80 countries around the world. Among the member companies of the Group, Stavian Chemical JSC is ranked at No. 6 in the TOP 100 Largest Chemical Distributors in the Asia – Pacific region and No. 22 in the TOP 100 Largest Chemical Distributors Worldwide (according to the ICIS Ranking in 2020).
Startups that receive investment from ThinkZone Ventures will have great potential to be supported and partner with these corporations, to take advantage of the huge resources in finance, production, distribution, retail, ...
"Over 10 years as a startup founder and a startup supporter, I have learned a lot from my own failures and successes. Therefore, I and ThinkZone always want to contribute and create a launching pad for founders who have the passion and vision to create positive values for society. With Fund II, ThinkZone has more resources than ever to make that happen," said Mr. Bui Thanh Do, General Partner & CEO of ThinkZone Ventures.
Talking about ThinkZone Fund II, Ms. Pham Minh Huong, Co-founder of IPA Investments and Chairwoman of VNDIRECT, said, "I share the same investment principles as ThinkZone, which is that investment should focus on creating real values instead of pure goal to profit. Fund I has proven that ThinkZone has selected and developed companies with great potential, and with Fund II's large resources, there are sure to be many more successful companies. This is also the first amount of capital that IPA allocates for startup investment, and ThinkZone is the very place that we trust to invest."
ThinkZone Accelerator Batch 5 is designed to be the largest resourced accelerator program in Vietnam
In parallel with the announcement of ThinkZone Fund II, ThinkZone also announces the launch of ThinkZone Accelerator Batch 5 to support early-stage tech startups that are in the process of product-market validation. This is the key activity that ThinkZone focuses on to create a source of potential startups, validate new business models, from which ThinkZone Fund II will be ready to invest in these startups in their next rounds. Support resources for startups from ThinkZone Accelerator include an investment of $50,000 - $100,000 per startup, along with a large network of support packages from ThinkZone's partner network.
When joining ThinkZone Accelerator, startups will have access to a variety of support packages in sales & marketing, recruitment, technology, etc. with a total value of more than $150,000/startup. These are all support packages from major partners in the startup ecosystem such as Amazon Web Services, Deloitte, Goldsun Media, FPT Play, Vietnambiz, MISA and HubSpot.
In addition, these startups will also be supported by experts from many fields in ThinkZone's mentor network, as well as connected with large corporate partners such as VNDirect, Phuthai Holding, Stavian Group, Viettel, Be Group, G-Group and Unilever to accelerate their growth process.
About ThinkZone Ventures
Founded in 2019, ThinkZone Ventures is a venture capital fund focusing on tech startups in the Pre-seed to Series A stage. ThinkZone invests in various verticals such as fintech, edtech, healthcare, transportation, digital transformation,… and was ranked by TechinAsia as the most active investor in Vietnam's startups.
After 3 years of establishment, ThinkZone has invested in 11 tech startups with a total valuation of more than 110 million USD. Some prominent ThinkZone's portfolio startups include GIMO – A flexible salary-advanced platform that has joined Y Combinator W2022, EMDDI - Vietnam's largest taxi dispatching platform with 30,000 vehicles in more than 50 provinces, eJOY – An edtech startup providing a multi-platform English learning solution with 1 million users globally, and Educa – An edtech startup with highest growth rate in Southeast Asia with more than 5 million users,...
