VietNamNet Bridge – Venture funds have still been seeking
opportunities to enrich their investment portfolios.
The news that DFJ VinaCapital or
CyberAgent Ventures, Kusto Vietnam – the venture funds - disbursed money for
Vietnamese businesses of different types, from seed-funding, early-stage or
growth-stage have appeared on many local newspapers.
In Vietnam, besides IDG Ventures
which has been well known with its investments in 40 companies, mostly
operating in the fields of Internet, software, e-commerce and media, CyberAgent
Ventures Inc from Japan and DFJ VinaCapital, a joint venture between Draper
Fisher Jurvetson in Silicon Valley and VinaCapital in Vietnam, are also the big
names.
Local newspapers have reported
that the two latter venture funds are “hunting” for new investment
opportunities.
Kusto Vietnam, belonging to a
group of foreign investors, who have been investing in Kazakhstan, Russia,
China, Turkey and Vietnam, have reportedly injected money in wada.vn, a
searching portal, MobiVí and truongxua.vn
DFJ VinaCapital, which began its
operation in 2006, now manages the capital of $30 million. According to Than
Trong Phuc, Managing Director of DFJ VinaCapital, the majority of the fund’s
capital has been disbursed, but it still plans to make investment in some more
businesses.
Recently, the fund has withdrawn
capital from VON (Vietnam Online Network), the owner of two websites HR Vietnam
and Kiemviec.com, when VON merged into the US CarreerBuilder on February 21,
2013.
As such, DJF VinaCapital still
keeps investment capital in five investment deals, including Dai Su Tre Group,
the owner of Yeah 1 TV and Yeah 1 Family TV channels, TS24 (Tax Online
service), Direct with Hotels.
A representative of DFJ
VinaCapital said that the fund plans to “close the accounts” this year, but it
would still much depend on whether it can find suitable businesses to inject
money in.
Meanwhile, he said the Vietnamese
market still does not have necessary conditions for venture funds to operate
effectively.
To date, venture funds have been
pouring money into Vietnamese businesses at different stages of their
development.
Nguyen Manh Dung, Director of
CyberAgent Ventures in Vietnam, said when deciding to invest more than 500,000
dollars in Foody.vn, a website on the food and restaurant services, which now
has 10,615 addresses in HCM City and 21,805 nationwide, in November 2012, the
project was still… on paper.
Meanwhile, ColorBox, a game and
mobile app developer on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, when receiving the
investment from CyberAgent, still could make profit.
Also according to Dung, 12
investment deals have been made by CyberAgent Ventures so far. These include
the ones made directly by CyberAgent Ventures Group, and the ones made by
CyberAgent Asia Internet Fund I, specializing in pouring money in South East
Asia.
The majority of the businesses
which received the investments are in the seed-funding stage, or early-stage,
while only two in developed businesses, namely VNG and VMG.
To date, the Japanese CyberAgent
Ventures has set up two venture funds reserved for the Asian market. Of the
two, CyberAgent Asia Internet Fund I has disbursed money for five companies in
Vietnam and two in Indonesia.
The fund has revealed its plan to
making heavier investment in South East Asia, raising the investment capital
from 20 million dollars to 50 million by 2015. This shows that venture funds
still have been looking for opportunities in the region.
DNSG
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