Mar 14, 2012

Vietnam - ICT firms getting more attractive in the eyes of venture funds


VietNamNet Bridge – Venture funds believe that it is now the right time for them to pour capital into the market. As businesses cannot access bank loans, they would seek the investments from venture funds. 


Information technology and Internet are believed as the business fields which do not bear influences from the economic recession. Therefore, experts have forecast a strong investment wave in ICT sector this year.

The golden opportunities

Nguyen Manh Dung, Chief Representative of CyberAgent Ventures in Vietnam, said that 2012 would be a favorable year for venture funds which focus on ICT and Internet to push up their investments in Vietnam.

David Do, Managing Director of VIG (Vietnam Investments Group), a fund which pours capital into different business fields, has also said that there are big opportunities to invest in the ICT sector in Vietnam at this moment.

He said that in developed countries in Europe or the US, the sector accounts for 7 percent of GDP, while the figure is less than 2 percent in Vietnam. However, VIG would not inject money in the companies which have just started their business. It would only make investment in the profitable companies which have cemented their positions on the market and they need more money to develop more rapidly.

Tran Tuan Tai, an officer of FPT Capital, has also said that the technology market is really potential, especially in the current circumstances, where the real estate, finance and stock markets still keep gloomy. Internet should be seen as a good sector for venture funds to restructure and diversify their investment portfolios. 

The long term strategies

Dung said that CyberAgent plans to push up the investment in the companies operating in the fields of Internet services and mobile phone services.

“There will be no limitation in the number of companies in which CyberAgent would invest. We are ready to inject money in many companies, provided that the companies can satisfy our requirements,” he said.

The fund poured capital into three ICT firms earlier this year, including NCT (NhacCuaTui.com), ColorBox software, and Tiki.vn, an online bookstore. To date, it has injected money in 10 businesses.

Meanwhile, CyberAgent Ventures plans to disburse 50 million dollars by 2013 into 20-30 projects. David Do has said that in 2012, VIG would make investment in 3-4 companies with the disbursement of 600-800 billion dong. Of this amount, 15-20 percent of the capital would be funneled to Internet and technology sector.

“VIG would prioritize to invest in the companies which specialize in single fields, or the companies which make heavy investment in human resource development,” David Do said. 

E-commerce services have also attracted the special attention from investment funds, which can see that Internet has been growing very rapidly, while the number of Internet users in Vietnam has been increasing rapidly.

Tai, on one hand, said that it would not invest in newly set up businesses, and would only inject money in developed businesses which need more capital to develop, on the other hand, said that it may consider injecting money in newly set up businesses with good business ideals and promised high turnover.

Tai has affirmed that FPT Capital is managing a huge volume of capital which can be disbursed quickly. The 2010’s finance report showed that FPT Capital was managing a capital volume of 5 trillion dong.

IDG Ventures, which is considered the fund which exploited the technology service market when pouring capital into the first project in 2005, has invested in more than 40 companies, including the well-known names such as PeaceSoft, Naiscorp, VietnamWorks and VNG.

DFJ VinaCapital has invested in more than 10 companies, including Yeah1, TaxOnline.com.vn, Gapit, TìmNhanh!, Chicilon Media...


Source: TBKTSG



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