<article>The Vietnamese startup space buzzed with action through 2015, clocking nearly 20 significant venture capital deals.</article>

The Vietnamese startup space buzzed with action through 2015, clocking nearly 20 significant venture capital deals.
While majority were angel to series A rounds, there were fewer Series B transactions. The geography saw some first time VCs entering the market such as Tiger Global Management and Captii Ventures. Also, 500 Startups further strengthened its place in Vietnam by bringing in local investment partners.
DEALSTREETASIA has gleaned through disclosed deals to cull out the defining transactions that are an indicator of the investment appetite and startup potential in Vietnam. Here go the transactions that made it to the list, which excludes sponsorship from accelerators.
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<h3>Hubert Burda invests $14m in Coc Coc</h3>
Announced in February, search engine startup <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://coccoc.com/">Coc Coc</a> was not only one of the first companies to close a deal in Vietnam in 2015, but also the one that attracted the largest investment &#8211; $14 million from German media group <a href="http://www.hubert-burda-media.com/">Hubert Burda</a>, adding to the $20 million funding it had secured earlier.
According to a source familiar with Coc Coc’s operation, the money has been fully disbursed.
Coc Coc’s flagship product is its Internet browser that the startup launched in 2013 to take on Google Chrome in Vietnam. It was known as a company founded by three Vietnamese people studying in Russia in 2007 and got invested by a group of Russian angel investors later on.
In October, DEALSTREETASIA reported that there was probably an internal shakeup inside Coc Coc as the Vietnamese founders had quietly exited the startup after the Russian CEO, Victor Lavrenko, took over.
Although the CEO and the Vietnamese co-founders reached out to DEALSTREETASIA to decline the information, several former employees of the company asserted there were HR issues within Coc Coc.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/coc-coc-receives-14m-hubert-burda-media-2746/">Vietnamese search engine Coc Coc raises $14m from Gernamy’s Hubert Burda</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/shakeup-at-vietnams-search-engine-coc-coc-have-founders-exited-15590/">Shakeup at Vietnam’s search engine Coc Coc: Have founders exited?</a>
<h3>Foody gobbles Series B &amp; C in one month</h3>
2015 has been a fruitful year for <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.foody.vn/">Foody Corporation</a> as the restaurant review media secured both series B and Series C funding within a span of a month.
The series B round came in early July with investment by Singapore-based consumer internet firm <a href="http://intl.garena.com/">Garena</a>. The next round was announced before the month-end (July 28) as US VC firm Tiger Global Management made its debut investment in a Vietnamese startup.
Foody is firstly backed by Japan’s <a href="https://www.cyberagentventures.com/en/">Cyberagent Ventures</a> in a seed round, then series A, which also had the involvement of <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.pixvc.com/">Pix Vine Capital Investment</a>.
Foody planned to use the proceeds to accelerate its customer base as it is trying to expand into other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia. Currently, the gourmet media company has been doing business in Indonesia. “Foody is the number one company in the Vietnamese gourmet media industry while holding the leading position in Southeast Asia (SEA) in terms of traffic and users,” Dzung Nguyen, CyberAgent Ventures’ head of Vietnam and Thailand, told DEALSTREETASIA.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/vietnams-food-service-startup-foody-grabs-series-b-investment-from-garena-8818/">Vietnam’s food service startup Foody raises Series B funding from Singapore’s Garena</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/foody-grabs-series-c-investment-from-americas-vc-tiger-global-management-9713/">Vietnam’s Foody grabs Series C funding from Tiger Global, to expand to Indonesia</a>
<h3>Life.SREDA invests $1m in Softpay</h3>
In October, mobile point of sale (mPOS) firm <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.softpay.mobi/">SoftPay Mobile International</a>, an incubatee of Singapore VC firm <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://dealstreetasia.com/tag/life.sreda">Life.SREDA</a>, received $1 million from the latter in a series A deal.
Incorporated in Singapore but having operations in Vietnam, Softpay is striving to be the “Square of Southeast Asia” with the next target markets of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The investment by Life.SREDA, along with another unnamed investor, valued the Vietnamese startup at “double digit millions”.
The fintech venture, launched earlier this year, is a spinoff of <a href="http://peacesoft.net/">Peacesoft</a>, a local company that focuses on e-commerce, famous for a number of e-commerce platforms.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/mobile-point-of-sale-venture-softpay-gets-1m-series-a-from-fintech-vc-life-sreda-16104/">Mobile point of sale venture Softpay gets $1m Series A from fintech VC Life.SREDA</a>
<h3>Golden Gate Ventures investment in Lozi</h3>
The last deal of the year into a Vietnam-based startup is the seven-digit investment of <a href="http://goldengate.vc/">Golden Gate Ventures</a> and <a href="http://designone.jp/">DesignOne Japan</a> into food ordering startup <a href="http://lozi.vn/a/ho-chi-minh">Lozi</a>.
Lozi was started in 2012 by Nguyen Hoang Trung, then a student who dropped college in South Korea to come back to Vietnam and start up.
The deal is Golden Gate Ventures’ second investment in Vietnam, following its funding in mobile internet firm <a href="https://appota.com/">Appota</a>, which has said it aims to raise tens of million US dollars in the series C round.
What’s noteworthy is that the investment came right after another food ordering platform, Foodpanda Vietnam, backed by German Internet company <a href="https://www.rocket-internet.com/">Rocket Internet</a>, announced it will stop all activities in Vietnam before it sold off the venture to local player Vietnammm.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/vietnam-food-ordering-app-lozi-gets-7-digit-funding-from-golden-gate-ventures-designone-japan-22145/">Vietnam: Food ordering app Lozi gets 7-digit funding from Golden Gate Ventures, DesignOne Japan</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/rocket-internet-backed-foodpanda-shuts-down-vietnam-ops-21995/">Rocket Internet-backed Foodpanda to exit Vietnamese market</a>
<h3>Vexere gets series A from Cyberagent Ventures</h3>
Cyberagent Ventures, again, collaborated with Pix Vine Capital to co-invest in Vietnam’s online bus ticketing platform <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://vexere.com/">Vexere</a> in a series A round in July. The Japanese VC was also Vexere’s seed round investor.
Prior to the investments, the Vexere projects had won several startup competition, including the Mekong Business Challenge and Echelon Ignite Vietnam. Most recently, Vexere won a third prize at the Vietnamese Talent Award ceremony, an annual event to honour science and technology products with social contribution.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/exclusive-cyberagent-ventures-leads-series-a-funding-in-vietnams-bus-ticket-platform-vexere-com-8353/">Cyberagent Ventures leads series A funding in Vietnam’s bus ticket platform Vexere.com</a>
<h3>Co-working space Toong gets $300K investment</h3>
<a style="color: #000080;" href="http://toong.com.vn/">Toong</a>, the newest co-working space startup in the country which officially launched in August, received an angel investment of $300,000. It is interesting to note that the funding came only two months after the co-working space made its debut. It plans to open more facilities to become Vietnam’s first co-working space chain.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/funding-led-expansion-makes-toong-vietnams-first-co-working-space-chain-21784/">Funding led expansion makes Toong Vietnam’s first co-working space chain</a>
<h3>Captii Ventures&#8217; first investment in OnOnPay</h3>
Singapore-headquartered <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/tag/captii-ventures/">Captii Ventures</a> made its entry into Vietnam with its six-digit seed investment in top-up service startup <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://ononpay.com/vi">OnOnPay</a>. “My first visit to Vietnam as an investor was in October 2014 for a really short trip, one day to be exact, to attend a Founder Institute’s graduation event. Since then we knew that Vietnam is going to be a market that we will pay more attention,” Saikit Ng, Captii Ventures executive director, told DEALSTREETASIA in an interview.
In November, he unofficially announced the second seed investment in enterprise communication platform <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.azstack.co/">Azstack</a>.
<h3>Huy Vietnam gets Series C from Templeton Fund</h3>
One of the most noteworthy deals came in the restaurant space with Huy Vietnam attracting a $15-million series C funding round from <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.franklintempleton.co.uk/downloadsServlet?docid=h0iay95h">Templeton Emerging Markets Group</a>. Restaurant chain Huy Vietnam is reportedly also planning for a listing in Hong Kong.
The investment was announced in April. Two Hong Kong PE groups also co-invested, including <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.welkincapital.com/">Welkin Capital</a> and <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.prosperous-alliance.com/home.html">Prosperous Alliance</a>. The deal followed a $15 million series B round that Huy Vietnam had secured in 2014 from institutional investors and family offices in Malaysia, Korea and Hong Kong.
Also Read: <a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/templeton-leads-15m-series-c-for-vietnam-restaurant-operator-5161/">Templeton leads $15m Series C for Vietnam restaurant operator</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/restaurant-chain-huy-vietnam-plans-listing-in-hong-kong-bourse-in-2016-22594/">Restaurant chain Huy Vietnam plans HK listing in 2016</a>
<h3>Cassia Investments puts $5.5m in The KAfe</h3>
Six months following the series C investment in Huy Vietnam, fusion food chain <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://thekafe.vn/index.php/en/">The KAfe</a> announced it had grabbed a series A round worth $5.5 million from <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://cassiainvestments.com/">Cassia Investments</a>, a PE firm focused on consumer-driven lower middle-market companies across Greater China and Southeast Asia.
Notably, both Huy Vietnam and The KAfe are initially backed by <a style="color: #000080;" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-asia-partners">New Asia Partners</a>, a Hong Kong-based investment company led by overseas Vietnamese Dennis Nguyen.
Also backed by other investors from London and Hong Kong in the latest financing round, The KAfe is planning listing in the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
Also Read:
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/kafe-group-to-list-in-hong-kong-london-forming-asias-household-name-chi-anh-16196/">Vietnamese fusion food chain KAfe Group in expansion mode, plans listings on HK, London bourses: CEO</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/cassia-investments-leads-5-5m-series-a-in-vietnamese-cafe-chain-kafe-group-15818/">Cassia Investments leads $5.5m series A in Vietnamese cafe chain KAfe Group</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/vietnamese-top-up-startup-ononpay-grabs-six-digit-investment-from-captii-ventures-10711/">Vietnam’s OnOnPay grabs six-digit investment from Captii Ventures</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/startup-review-2014-vietnam-tech-finds-success-expands-overseas-2803/">Startup Review 2014: Vietnam tech firms find success, expand overseas</a>

Vietnamese startups continued to see fresh developments in 2015, with nearly 20 venture capital (VCs), consolidation deals that DEALSTREETASIA has recorded.

Vietnam 2015: 20 investments with angel-to-Series A bias & first-time VCs dot deal landscape

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