Ascend Vietnam Ventures’s early-stage fund AVV Alpha exceeds US$50M target

Ascend Vietnam Ventures announced today its early-stage fund, AVV Alpha, has exceeded the US$50 million target.

AVV Alpha is backed by development finance institutions, funds of funds, corporate VCs, and HNIs from leading local and regional companies across Asia, Europe, and the US.

The fund seeks to invest in capital-efficient startups primarily in areas such as fintech, edutech, blockchain, and the future of work. It invests up to US$2 million each in 25 early-stage startups by 2023. It will then follow on with cheques of up to US$5 million.

In the past nine months, the VC firm has invested in ten startups, including

• Kilo (SaaS and wholesale marketplace for over 30,000 MSME retailers across Vietnam),
• Virtual Internships (remote internship placement & management platform for companies in over 70 countries worldwide),
• T&C Logistics (e-commerce fulfilment platform),
• Mandu (social commerce platform focused on reseller enablement).

Ascent Vietnam is led by Binh Tran and Eddie Thai (former partners of 500 Vietnam). The duo have invested together in Vietnam since 2015 and backed home-grown international firms, such as Axie Infinity (NFT gaming unicorn), ELSA (AI-driven edutech firm later backed by Google’s AI-focused fund), and Trusting Social (financial inclusion fintech firm later backed by Sequoia). 

Also Read: 500 Startups’s top execs set up new seed-stage VC firm Ascend Vietnam Ventures

“The likes of Axie Infinity, ELSA, and Trusting Social are by no means isolated successes,” said Binh Tran. “Vietnam’s dynamism, accessibility, low cost of living, and abundant quality engineering talent attract many founders. On top of that, many tech solutions built here can address similar challenges and customer behaviours in other emerging markets worldwide. Vietnam will continue to be seen as one of the best places to build global or regional market-leading companies.”

“We believe in the ability of all entrepreneurs in Vietnam to do great things, regardless of their backgrounds, and in our ability, opportunity, and obligation to help them do so,” Eddie Thai added.

In early 2021, Ascend Vietnam launched SHINE women founder initiatives in partnership with the Australian Government’s Investing in Women initiative. Since its inception, SHINE has organised training, mentoring, and community-building programmes for over 60 women entrepreneurs and executives, helping them advance their growth, people & leadership, and capital strategies and expand their support network.

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