Korean Venture Capital Poured into Vietnam

According to Adjust’s Mobile Growth Map – a mobile market research company, Vietnam is the fastest growing application market that keeps Internet users.

In 2017, Korean President Moon Jae-in announced a new policy aimed at strengthening the relationship between Korea and ASEAN. These policies have boosted the dynamism of Korean companies to Southeast Asian business.

More and more companies in every field aim to Southeast Asia. Many of them, are venture capitalists.

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Over the past two years, Southeast Asian technology companies have signed numerous agreements involving Korean investors, such as the 50 million USD investment in Bukalapak e-commerce company of Mirae Asset-Naver Growth Fund, seed sponsorship deals for real estate startups from BonAngels Venture Partners and Kakao Ventures.

In addition to trade and real estate, Korean venture capital funds have poured money into almost every other important area of Southeast Asia including fintech (KIP’s investment in C88 in Singapore), car (SoftBank Ventures Korea in Singapore by Carro), travel (BonAngels and Nextrans in Vietnam) and logistics (Nextrans and FuturePlay into EcoTruck Vietnam).

In recent years, Korean venture capital companies have also established joint funds with partners in Southeast Asia to target startups in the region, including a cooperation fund worth 87 million USD of Korean Investment Partners with Golden Equator, the 100 million USD cooperation fund of Intervest and Kejora Ventures. The bigger ones are Hanwha Asset Management and Golden Gate Ventures with 200 million USD fund and most recently the investment fund of about 100 million USD of KB Investment and MDI Ventures.

In 2017, Southeast Asia’s private capital and venture capital surpassed Europe for the first time, with the amount of 23.5 billion USD invested in this area, nearly three times higher than in 2016, according to data from Singapore Venture Capital & Equity Association

(SVCA). Investments in startups doubles to 8 billion USD. In 2018, Alibaba invested an additional of 2 billion USD in Lazada while Indonesia’s Gojek closed the 1.5 billion USD funding round.

Korean investors pay special attention to Indonesia and Vietnam. According to the Vietnam Technology Investment Report of Cento Ventures and ESP Capital, 13 of 61 venture capital funds operating in Vietnam in the first half of 2019 are Korea.

According to Adjust’s Mobile Growth Map – a mobile market research company, Vietnam is the fastest growing application market that keeps Internet users.

One of the reasons is that Vietnam is the market with the largest potential for internet growth worldwide.

That’s why so many businesses come to this region, and so many acquirers are actively looking for Southeast Asian companies. Silicon Valley giants like Google and competitors are beginning to look more seriously at Southeast Asian companies as an investment and acquisition opportunity.

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