On March 30, the Vietnam National Startup Initiative workshop took place in Hanoi. The event attracted about 50 guests including the leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education and Training, the Vietnam Software Association and representatives from important companies in the Vietnamese startup ecosystem such as investment funds, enterprises, associations, educational institutes etc.
Within the framework of the program, FPT and Dragon Capital Group signed a cooperation agreement on the establishment of Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA). VIISA will be an open-ended fund with the participation of many large enterprises and investment funds in which FPT and Dragon Capital Group are the founders. The fund aims to train, invest and support Vietnamese start-up groups in the fields of information technology, mobile, internet and finance. The first start-up accelerator training course of VIISA is expected to officially open in the second quarter of 2016.
The establishment of VIISA was in response to the national program to build Vietnam’s startup ecosystem launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology. VIISA will create a new startup ecosystem to help hit the goal that Vietnam will have 5,000 technology companies by 2020. The founders affirmed that they would try their best to make VIISA a center to connect Vietnam’s startups with businesses and investors around the world. Currently, FPT and Dragon Capital Group are calling for more names among Top 500 enterprises in Vietnam as well as funds and start-up incubators worldwide to build and develop VIISA.
Executive Chairman of Dragon Capital Group, Mr. Dominic Scriven OBE, comments: “We believe in the information technology and mobile revolution. We think growth engine of the economy in next decade will lie with the innovative startups we see today. By starting to work on this program, we do hope to accelerate the commercialisation and the application of innovative technologies in Vietnam.”
After the declaration of the establishment of VIISA, the founding members signed a memorandum of agreement on the development of start-up activities at universities and high schools including VNU University of Engineering and Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, FPT University and Hanoi – Amsterdam High School.
Earlier, in 2015, FPT established FPT Ventures to offer Vietnam’s technology startups opportunities to reach new heights. So far, FPT Ventures have invested more than $1 million in the startups inside and outside of the corporation. Some of the examples are CyRadar named among Asia’s top 10 most promising tech startups by Echelon, ANTS – the first Vietnamese real-time bidding ad exchange portal and ELSA – the winner of the SXSWedu Launch startup competition.
