The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has stated that with the existing foundations of the startup ecosystem in general and the technology industry in particular, Vietnam may appear as a new technology unicorn in the future.

The Vietnamese government’s initiatives to advance the growth of fintech

The Vietnamese government has acknowledged that technology firms are the nation’s new source of growth.

The Government of Vietnam’s long-term objective in this sector, according to ADB, is to attract knowledge, businesses, people, and entrepreneurs to engage in economic development and the formation of successful start-ups.

An example of government support is Project 844, intending to develop 600 businesses by 2025, and 100 of them will be able to call for investment capital with a total value of at least VND 2 trillion (about US$85.44 million).

This goal is supported by the National Fund for Technological Innovation and two new projects called “Supporting students and students to start a business by 2025” and “Supporting women to start a business in the period 2017-2025”.

The next generation of Vietnamese startup unicorns will be developed and built, according to Aimee Hampel-Milagrosa, an economist at ADB and one of the report’s primary authors, who claimed that the government has started to put together crucial components, such as financial and policy incentives, to facilitate this process.

Also Read: How Koina uplifts lives of Vietnamese farmers through its data-driven agritech platform

The license for the cryptocurrency and e-commerce segment was developed in 2021. There are many financial and fintech projects being heated, such as creating an Open Banking framework and Data Protection. (Data Protection) and Security Roadmap/Strategy, National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2022. 

Vietnam supports the position of fintech with hard data

The top five startup industries in Vietnam in years recently are financial technology, or fintech (26.6 per cent), e-commerce (20.3 per cent), educational technology or edutech, medical technology or healthtech, and service software (6.3 per cent).

Health technology and agricultural technology or agritech are two fields with strong social impact and promise to support more fair and sustainable development, according to ADB.

By the end of 2021, Vietnam had added MoMo and Sky Mavis to the list in addition to the two unicorns that had previously appeared, VNG (2014) and VNLIFE (2019). Vietnam comes in third place in the area for the number of technology unicorns, behind Singapore and Indonesia. And set a record investment capital of US$1.4 billion.

And companies that are considered “near” technology unicorns and promising startups that create a unique business model or competitive advantage can go as far as Tiki, Economical Delivery, Trusting Social, Kyber Network Amanotes, KiotViet: Fast Delivery.

Vietnamese talks about fintech companies with the best growth in Vietnam

Currently, over 70 per cent of the fintech companies in Vietnam are startups. In general, 48 per cent of businesses are involved in the payment industry and offer online payment services or digital payment solutions to consumers and merchants, including 2C2P, VTPay, OnePay, VTCPay, BankPlus, VinaPay, VNPay, and Senpay.

First, one of the first financial tech companies to mention is online mobile services Joint Stock Company operating under the MoMo brand. Vietnamese citizens have grown to rely on MOMO as their trustworthy e-wallet aide. MOMO solidifies its position in the Vietnamese fintech market with user-friendly features. 

Also Read: How corporate innovation in Vietnam is fledgling the B2B startup ecosystem

Ms. M, a 30-year-old Hanoi resident, describes how satisfied she is with MOMO wallet, “I appreciate that MOMO accepts payments through IOS or Facebook for foreign service packages since it makes it easier for me to send money fast to others”

No Vietnamese person who is addicted to online shopping on e-commerce sites is unaware of Shopee and the ShopeePay e-wallet. With ShopeePay e-wallet products, users will enjoy countless exclusive promotions from Shopee.

ShopeePay e-wallet has changed its name twice, formerly TopPay, then changed to the new name AirPay. The second name change from June 8, 2021, Airpay has linked with Shopee and changed its name to ShopeePay. 

“It’s fantastic that the online store you use has its own e-wallet integrated. I can use Shopee to pay for orders, get cinema tickets, and top off my e-card addition to paying for orders. phone, many advantages,” 25-year-old Ho Chi Minh City resident Mr. H shared.

Vietnam’s fintech industry aspires to the top spot

Vietnam’s population is large and young, with a high percentage of Smartphone users, reaching 72 per cent, along with the rapidly growing trend of the e-commerce industry. Government support in promoting mobile payments, the percentage of young people that are dominant in a country with a large population like Vietnam will create a huge potential demand for fintech.

The demand for personal finance in Vietnam is expected to continue to grow shortly. Also, according to the SBV’s forecast, by 2025, personal credit will account for about 24 per cent of the technology application market in financial services. This shows that the Vietnamese market has a high potential for development, which can become a very attractive market for fintech products.

The year 2021 has given the global digitalisation process pace thanks to COVID-19’s extensive effects, confirming a strong basis for the global fintech sector’s recovery. This year also saw Vietnam’s fintech market see exceptional growth, as evidenced by the rise in foreign currency investments, the adoption of digital financial services, and favorable government regulations. As a result, with more varied and improved products, Vietnam emerges as a key location for fintech growth.

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Benedict Tan joined Vertex Ventures in 2020 to focus on opportunities in Southeast Asia across the fintech and property tech sectors. Before Vertex, he worked at North Ridge Partners, a boutique investment bank focusing on tech opportunities in Southeast Asia.

Tan graduated from Singapore Management University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration.

He regularly contributes articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, he talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

We team with smart people to help them “grow” new and exciting ideas to solve some of the region’s most significant problems, ranging from mobility to gaining unprecedented access to business capital. Think of it like planting a seed and giving it the water, sunshine and love it needs to grow into a big, beautiful plant!

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

People may think that, like stock investing, venture investing is simply just injecting capital into a company and hoping it will multiply. However, that is not the case at Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, where we take an active, hands-on approach to grow the company alongside the founders.

Also Read: Continue to push boundaries and create value: Jolene Lum of Nurasa

My biggest challenge was coming in as a greenhorn to the industry with which my portfolio founder is associated, as I knew no one and needed to figure out where to start. Thanks to my colleagues and network’s help, I overcame it and found my way around.

I enjoy helping founders with a wealth of experience in each industry find the missing piece of the puzzle, whether searching for a new C-suite member or introducing them to new investors.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

I often think deeply about this question. I have always had a voracious appetite for learning about entrepreneurship, new business models, paradigms, and the major industries of the future.

Naturally, staying in the startup scene is a no-brainer for me! While I’m nowhere near the end of my VC learning curve, I would love to venture into starting up my own business in the future.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Medium, market intelligence sites, and news aggregators are great for keeping a pulse on the latest developments in today’s fast-paced market.

I am late to the party, but I recently fell in love with Notion for note-taking. Its collaborative features are convenient when working with colleagues across four countries!

As part of my VC role, I have been introduced to some exciting new tools. Has anyone been just as obsessed over ChatGPT as me?

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Only a few people know this, but my home is like a mini-zoo. Growing up, my family used to keep parrots, lovebirds, arowanas, chickens, terrapins, frogs, rabbits, hamsters, chinchilla dogs, and more. I still find it strange when I step into my friends’ homes and do not see any pets roaming around!

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

After experiencing all three stages in the past two years, hybrid arrangements work best for me. The nature of VC work requires me to be on the go constantly, be it meeting up with founders or collaborating with my teammates in person.

Also Read: Be hungrier and bolder to explore a variety of industries: Sharina Khan of Thoughtworks

But downtime is also essential, enabling me to strike a good balance and catch some quiet time to think more deeply and reflect on making the best decisions possible.

What would you tell your younger self?

You are ready as you’ll ever be. Be bold to try new things, take risks and trust yourself. (And, probably, don’t study too hard!)

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Pragmatic, outgoing, open-minded

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

I enjoy the process of cooking and would probably be whipping up a mean steak! Lately, I’ve started collecting coffee beans in my travels around the region and have been experimenting with various brewing methods to perfect the extraction process.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

I am halfway through reading The unintended consequences of technology solutions breakthroughs and the restart we need by Chris Ategeka. The book talks about how technology has altered our world in both positive and negative ways.

As for podcasts, I am a huge fan of business podcasts such as The Memo by Howard Mark, 20VC, and if you have yet to listen, Hard truths by Vertex!

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Edutech startup Strive recently raised US$1.3 million in seed funding round from from notable investors such as Goodwater Capital, an early investors in Facebook and Spotify; and angels such as the president of MasterCard Asia and the Founder of Sequoia India.

Started out in Singapore, Strive is an online coding school for kids ages 8-16. It aims to ignite kids’ passion for coding and pave the way for a career in technology. In live 1-on-1 online classes, students work with a passionate teacher to code games and apps in Python.

Coding has become a key skill for businesses across all industries, but Strive sees that there have not been enough resources available for teaching children how to code. Its apps offer a unique approach to teaching kids to code.

“We wanted Strive to be everything the other coding platforms aren’t. We started with a student-centric approach that focuses on active learning. This process involves students engaging with the curriculum through problem-solving, discussion, and applying their skills to visual-coding projects. This was simply because it’s not just what you learn; it’s how you learn. Most coding schools focus on instructing kids to build specific projects they can show their parents and friends, but that approach doesn’t lead to mastery of coding. Kids learn rotely and only develop skills that can be applied in the classroom,” Strive CTO Tamir Shklaz explains in a statement.

Also Read: Southeast Asia is in plastic waste crisis, and these 16 sustainable startups strive to turn things around

He also explains how Strive chooses the teachers for their platform.

“They obviously needed to be coding experts to be credible educators. Still, we know that the most ‘qualified’ educators and not necessarily the most effective. Even for kids who like the idea of coding, it can still be daunting. We wanted to ensure that our teachers had exceptional EQ and understood how to engage with a kid on an emotional level too. It was important that our students loved our teachers because we believed it would be a crucial way to get them to commit to their coding education.”

The company will use the money to:

– Develop a coding editor (IDE) specialised for empowering teachers to teach and students to learn to code.

– Create engaging coding content for kids of different ages, levels, and interests.

– Explore novel ways of assessing kids’ mastery of coding, not just their ability to pass a test.

– Develop its teacher training.

“However, most importantly, our latest funding round gives us the resources to continue our mission. To make education for kids joyful and meaningful.” says Shklaz.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 is bringing together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups get the chance to pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

Image Credit: Strive

The post Strive raises US$1.3M to transform the way kids learn to code appeared first on e27.

As businesses grapple with increased automation, entrepreneurs need to step up their game in order to engage with their customers in personalised ways. With an unpredictable market and ever-changing purchasing behaviour, it is critical for businesses to gain renewed insights about their customers. This enables businesses to adjust and adapt their products and services to meet market demands and retain customer loyalty. 

Aptly named “Retention Playbook Vietnam: Mapping Personalised Customer Journeys”, the upcoming Big Leap Roadshow is focused on sharing the best practices by regional growth leaders on how to retain and grow their customer base. 

The event is taking place on 22nd February 2023 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, following the spectacular successes of the Big Leap Roadshow in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The Big Leap Roadshow is a collaborative project between e27 and CleverTap, a SaaS-based customer lifecycle management and mobile marketing company headquartered in Mountain View, California.

CleverTap is leading the charge for personalised customer journey

As the world’s number 1 Retention Cloud trusted by 2000 customers, CleverTap is leading the charge to help businesses improve their approach to customer retention. In their years of experience, CleverTap believes that understanding the role of personalised customer journeys is an essential aspect for businesses to remain competitive, and one of the best ways to achieve this is by mapping the customer journey.

Customer journey mapping allows companies to gain insight into their customer’s needs and preferences, enabling them to create tailored experiences at different touch points along the journey. Moreover, it helps businesses better understand how their products or services are being used by customers so that they can optimise their product development and marketing efforts. 

Also read: Explore the global market with JETRO x Techstars Startup City Acceleration Program

Creating a customer journey map involves gathering data from multiple sources including surveys, interviews with customers and industry experts, as well as analysing existing analytics tools such as website traffic metrics or social media engagement. The data is then used to identify key touchpoints along the customer’s decision-making process from the initial stage of need recognition until the completion of their purchasing process.

With our increasingly digital shopping experience (from seeing ads on social media to online shopping) companies have better access to customer behaviour data that they can synthesise into valuable insights. These insights are invaluable to developing strategies that will drive conversions at each step, and to perfect the user experience through all stages of the cycle. 

Strategies to approach personalised customer journey mapping

In order to create valuable optimised customer journeys, entrepreneurs must explore and experiment with different business strategies. For starters, businesses must exercise a high level of orchestration across their business functions combined with critical data analytics and creative problem-solving skills. These things can be achieved through comprehensive market research to assess broad customer insights and industry trends across multiple channels. This will ensure higher success rates for businesses, enhance customer engagement, boost sales figures, and encourage them to return and seek out the same products and services.

Also read: UNL: Driving business success with new-generation micro-location mapping

In a nutshell, an ideal customer journey mapping should provide information about customers’ needs, potential pain points and motivators, experience at each touchpoint, customer feedback, and possible improvements and solutions.

Customer journey mapping success stories in the world and in Vietnam

There are a slew of benefits that come with personalised customer journeys, enabling businesses to create more meaningful connections with their target audience and offer greater customer values than generic experiences. As such, leading global companies have been quick to embrace the practices.

For example, Amazon Prime’s one-click shopping option has revolutionised how people shop online due to its convenience and thorough understanding of the customer’s shopping habits, preferences, and desires. Another example is Grab’s loyalty program which proposes discounts on rides based on user behaviour patterns over time, optimising customers’ lifetime values and bolstering customer delight.

In Vietnam, VNTrip, whose leader is one of the keynote speakers at the forthcoming Retention Playbook Vietnam panel discussion, also boasts of using personalised customer journey mapping and offering a unique customer experience that allows the company to thrive. Specifically, by understanding the different stages customers go through when interacting with their brand, VNTrip tailors their products and services based on individual needs, making them feel valued and understood, and improving business efficiency by removing unnecessary touchpoints.

Also read: Data streaming in real-time made possible with Aiven’s Apache KafkaⓇ

With much hype towards personalised customer journey and its lucrative applications in real businesses, CleverTap’s Big Leap Roadshow in Ho Chi Minh City is poised to provide businesses with beneficial resources for building valuable, long-term relationships with your customers in today’s competitive market as growth leaders open up and share their best practices on creating personalised customer journeys. 

Learn from industry experts across various sectors about how they have created magnetic experiences to grow customer retention, increase lifetime value, and go from good to great.

To sign up for the event, click here.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by CleverTap

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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Singapore-based H3 Dynamics is no longer a simple startup; it has grown to become a “mini-conglomerate” with four emerging standalone businesses, each run by independent leadership.

Since winning Echelon 2019, the aerial mobility company has raised significant investments, expanded into multiple geographies, and partnered with many MNCs. It also has contributed to tackling climate change by developing energy loss identification solutions in high-rise buildings, replacing diesel generators used on boom lift equipment with scanner drones, and developing zero-emission hydrogen propulsion solutions/hydrogen power generators.

H3 Dynamics has grant plans to take the company to the next level. We spoke with its Founder and Group CEO, Taras Wankewycz, to learn about these plans.

Excerpts:

You raised US$26M in a Series B investment round in November 2021. How have you grown since this round? Did you add any new clients/products to your portfolio?

In November 2021, we completed the rolling-close financing round of US$26 million [from investors, including Japan’s SPARX Mirai Creation Fund (lead), EDBI, Capital Management Group, and French strategic investors ATEQ] that began in 2018. So, we have been investing capital gradually and much earlier and growing step by step.

Our software team in Singapore has tripled in size, and our AI-enabled building maintenance digitisation tool was launched in 2019, growing revenue 100 per cent every year since then.

Also Read: H3 Dynamics closes US$26M Series B to introduce long-range hydrogen-air logistics solutions

H3 Dynamics has acquired over 50 regional and global scale clients in the real estate sector, becoming a market leader in Asia with over 4,000 high-rise buildings already processed.

We also built a dedicated robotics tech team. In 2022, it launched a charging station for remote drone operations, with our first shipments completed to Europe, the US, and Australia.

Besides, we also globalised our operations with our aerial power system R&D in the US and Europe.

What started as company business units are now becoming companies with their own leadership teams, clients, and product lines, developing independently under one Singapore holding structure.

All in all, H3 Dynamics is currently looking like a mini-conglomerate.

Please tell us more about the four different business units.

Our Singapore-based real estate maintenance management software business, H3 Zoom, targets facilities management companies, repair contractors, civil engineering firms, inspection firms, building owners, developers and insurance companies.

We also have a robotics company in the city-state that works on drone automation stations addressing energy utilities, solar farms, mining, oil and gas, agriculture and critical site security.

Our US-based small hydrogen power and refuelling systems company targets unmanned aircraft manufacturers in the civilian and defence sectors.

At the same time, our France-based larger-scale hydrogen propulsion and infrastructure company addresses aircraft OEMs, airports, and MRO companies.

You are into a capital-intensive business. Do you plan to raise Series B-plus/pre-Series C round soon? Is it challenging to raise capital for a growth-stage company like H3 Dynamics?

It has been challenging. We are in a deeptech B2B sector bringing solutions that apply pioneering technologies. In the past few years, we had to compete for capital with fast-growing coffee shop chains, online clothing retail ventures, and crypto ventures.

Unfortunately, investors in our region tend to stay away from growth-stage high-tech engineering and science-based companies, which present different revenue timelines and growth profiles. Such companies need patient investors that value hard innovation. So we have focused our fundraising abroad (in Japan, Europe, and the US) with no choice but to expand out of Singapore.

We are now closing a Series B extension round at the holding/group level and preparing to start raising capital at our subsidiary-level companies in the coming weeks.

You partnered with Thales for a real-time autonomous drone flight monitoring system in January 2021. How has this partnership played out? Do you expect to announce more such big partnerships moving forward?

We are working closely with Thales in Europe right now. We use a former military airfield near Paris they manage for our flight tests.

The goal is to keep progressing the airspace integration topic using cybersecurity solutions that can be trusted by civil aviation authorities globally, where Thales has been leading the market for decades already.

This being said, we have partnered with many other companies across different industries and geographies. Unfortunately, we cannot reveal all of them due to confidentiality agreements.

Also Read: FROGS wants to become the first startup in SEA to fly passenger drones

In recent months, we announced technology partnerships in the liquid hydrogen space (primarily in the waste-to-hydrogen space).

In the robotics domain, we partnered mostly with resellers abroad, and we are just about to reveal a cornerstone partnership in the software space.

Are there any new products in the development stage?

We are developing new products, focusing on sustainability and reducing carbon emissions.

Buildings generate slightly more CO2 émissions than all the transport/mobility combined. So we now have applied our AI and thermal imaging technologies to find energy losses in buildings, especially those that use air conditioning.

On the hardware side, we scaled up our capability from powering drones to powering planes. We just confirmed government funding in France to develop the first hydrogen propulsor nacelle system.

H3 Dynamics is also in the process of developing new zero-emission alternatives to diesel or kerosene power generators.

How has the company been growing in the downturn? What has been the impact of the current recession on your business?

Luckily, our product lines target productivity improvements, energy savings in sectors looking to reduce operating costs, and sustainability solutions that are top of mind for our clients.

Aviation is a booming industry post-COVID-19, and thus we see a lot of demand in our target markets. The only challenge is financing for growth, so we must be cautious. We are still heavily reliant on external capital to continue our development.

Do you plan to take your products to more geographies?

H3 Dynamics has been developing the Japanese market for the past two years and hope to open local operations there now that local clients and resellers are activated. We have a growing base of Japanese investors, and Japan is one of our key target markets in the APAC region. Some big announcements are planned in March on this topic.

Otherwise, we have grown our European and US client base; we expect to ramp up in Australia in the coming 18 months.

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Echelon Asia Summit 2023 brings together APAC’s leading startups, corporates, policymakers, industry leaders, and investors to Singapore this June 14-15. Learn more and get tickets here. Echelon also features the TOP100 stage, where startups can pitch to 5000+ delegates, among other benefits like a chance to connect with investors, visibility through e27 platform, and other prizes. Join TOP100 here.

The post H3 Dynamics decarbonises global aviation industry with multiple aerial mobility products appeared first on e27.