HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Dec. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 4, 2018, VIISA announced that three startups have graduated from Batch 4 of its Accelerator Program on the 4th VIISA Investment Day held at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
The VIISA Investment Day featured five impressive startups from VIISA's portfolio coming from various industries, including cybersecurity, facial recognition, location intelligence platform, smart apartment ecosystem, and online ed-tech platform. More than 100 honorable guests, including investors, mentors, corporate leaders, and startup community figures attended the event.
The startups in VIISA Accelerator Program Batch 4 are SecurityBox, GOONG and PhyPass. By joining the VIISA Accelerator Progam, they received an investment of US$15,000 in cash and an undisclosed amount of in-kind services, such as co-working space, Amazon Web Services, HubSpot, Google Cloud, Mapbox, Zendesk, etc. The founders also underwent intensive training, from acquiring early customers to avoiding problems such as no market needs or product-mistimed to talking to investors, closing business and investment deals, as well as developing scalable business models. They came on stage during the VIISA Investment Day, presenting a real business with real customers that is recording over US$200K in revenue growth and strong interests from top-tier investors in less than 3 months.
Long Nghiem, Founder and COO of GOONG, shared at the Investment Day: "Before participating in the VIISA Accelerator Program, we focused on B2C (business-to-customer) model, but we could not find the monetization plan. We thought about changing our model to B2B (business-to-business). However, we could not find customers. Joining the VIISA Accelerator Program was a turning point to us, not only because we have VIISA as a strategic partner, but also the network of partners that VIISA introduced to us. This has helped us a lot in clearing the direction ahead and improving our product-market fit!"
Looking at the future, Mr. Hieu Vo, CFO of VIISA, shared at the Investment Day: "VIISA's Batch 4 has been most challenging yet exciting so far. We enjoyed various types of great-to-have 'issues' on both fronts working with the founders and closing further investments for the alumni. Most importantly, VIISA Accelerator Program doesn't end on the Investment Day, but continue to support our founders for the life of their ventures and beyond. Having two full years in existence, the founding shareholders are convinced with the impacts we have created for the ecosystem. We are optimistic about the future batches to come, starting with VIISA Fintech Lab in early 2019."
CyHome and Ella Study - 2 startups graduated from VIISA Accelerator Program Batch 2 - was also pitching at the event, as the epitome of VIISA startups' development post-program. CyHome has a great period when the number of customers doubled compared to last year (with 42 apartments hosting more than 18,000 residences); more than 10 business partners with various services such as payment, service, goods, etc., adding great values to customers. Ella Study developed relationships with more than 50 partners worldwide, attracting over 2,800 alumni on its platform. In 2018, Ella has reached 400 students with new services covering students' overseas study needs: full consultation package until graduation, pick-up on arrival and study-tutor abroad.
In the Investment Day closing speech, Mr. Tran Huu Duc, CEO of VIISA and Head of FPT Ventures, officially called for startups to participate in Batch 5 of VIISA's Accelerator Program. Intersted startups can register on VIISA's website at www.viisa.vn starting December 10, 2018. VIISA Accelerator Program Batch 5 is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2019.
5 startups that have presented at the Investment Day include:
About VIISA
Founded by FPT Ventures and Dragon Capital, VIISA is an accelerator program and seed-stage fund that seeks to invest $6 million to build global-ready startups in Vietnam. VIISA believes entrepreneurs can take advantage of opportunities and change the world starting from Vietnam. In the first two years, VIISA has accelerated and invested into 25 startups, which have created more than 350 jobs and raised a total committed US$5 million from other investors.
CONTACT PERSON
Long "Leo" PHAM
Program Manager, VIISA
leo@viisa.vn
+84-969-111-472
