The Vietnam Venture Capital Alliance has been established to support the country’s startup ecosystem, while food ordering startup Lozi has raised a bridge round of financing led by Singapore’s Vulpes Investment Management.
Investment funds establish Vietnam Venture Capital Alliance
Investment funds led by VC firm and accelerator ThinkZone have established the Vietnam Venture Capital Alliance (VVCA), ThinkZone announced at the Vietnam TechFest 2020 on Thursday.
Formed with an aim to increase efficiency in attracting capital, VVCA will be a focal point in the Vietnamese startup ecosystem to exchange information, introduce investment opportunities, and provide support for international investors.
The alliance will have three main functions: issue annual reports on investment activities in Vietnam, organise dialogues with the government on investment in innovative startups, and propose policy recommendations to improve the startup investment climate in Vietnam.
In addition, VVCA will be an official focal point for investment in the ecosystem to link with investment networks, investment funds, and international investors.
Investment funds including Monk’s Hill Capital, 500 Startups, Next100, Vietnam Investment Group, Nextrans, and FEBE Ventures joined the alliance.
In a separate development, 33 investment funds committed over $800 million to support the country’s startup ecosystem over the next four years. An agreement to that effect was signed between the Vietnamese government and local and international VC firms at the Vietnam Venture Summit on November 24.
In 2019, at the first Vietnam Venture Summit, VC investors had committed $425 million to startups between 2019 and 2021.
Food ordering startup Lozi raises funds
Vietnam’s food ordering startup Lozi, which owns the on-demand delivery service LoShip, has raised a bridge round of financing led by Singapore-based Vulpes Investment Management, CEO & Founder of the company Nguyen Hoang Trung confirmed to DealStreetAsia.
Other investors including Saudi Arabia-based Daal Ventures, Wealth Well, Nigerian VC firm Eucagi Ventures, KI Group, and Moje Akhbari, who was the former managing director for Starbucks Greece and Cyprus, also joined this funding round.
The new financing will fuel Lozi’s latest growth area, a business-to-business (B2B) delivery-offering for small businesses.
“We see Vietnam as the most intriguing market in Southeast Asia in the coming years,” said Field Pickering, Head of Venture Investing at Vulpes Investment Management.
“And we couldn’t think of a better way to play the Vietnam growth story than by investing in the most innovative logistics company in the country, which delivers over 100,000 deliveries a day and is led by an incredibly entrepreneurial and commercial young team,” he added.
In October last year, Lozi closed an eight-digit US dollar funding round led by South Korea’s Smilegate Investment. The round was joined by DTNI, Ascendo Ventures (South Korea), JC Capital (US), and VSV, among others.
Founded in 2013, Lozi was originally an app for people to find food, beverages, and coffee shops. In 2015, it raised seven-digit-dollar funding from Golden Gate Ventures and internet media firm DesignOne Japan Inc.
