Domestic firms urged to engage more in Vietnamese startups

Illustrative photo. (Source: VNA)

Domestic corporations are urged to invest more in Vietnamese startups which has mostly drawn attention from foreign investors, heard at a talk on investment prospects in the innovative startup market in Ho Chi Minh City.

The event was hosted by Saigon Innovation Hub (Sihub) in collaboration 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 the National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Development. Data shows that investment in Vietnamese startups hit a record high of over 1.3 billion USD last year but a majority of the funding came from foreign ventures.

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

These corporations, which are the country’s largest resources, mainly use imported technologies while many local technologies have failed to get commercialised, he noted. “So we all expect major Vietnamese companies will be the ones to “order” solutions from startups and the first to use the products.”

Investment into Vietnamese startups noseped by 60 percent to 317 million USD in 2020 from 861 million USD due to impacts of COVID-19. The figure bounced back strongly 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 were able to raise funding annually on average. In 2021, just 147 projects succeeded in funding raising even though there are 200 capital ventures in the country.

During the event, Sihub and Viet Lotus signed an agreement to boost the development of ecosystem for innovative startups in the coming time./.