Impressive startups at Demo Day 2016

Vietnam has potential for the development of a business startup ecosystem

The Demo Day 2016 attracted 11 startup groups to present their practical projects to make life better. They have been carefully selected from a hundred of applicants, funded for US$10,000 from the Vietnam Silicon Valley Project and trained on how to complete a business idea and to get ready for business expansion.

This second event gathered startups from different sectors (including education, construction, technology, health and food) and countries (Singapore and the Philippines). Most of them are young and dynamic anddare to fail and keep moving forward. Most participants adopted information technology in their ideas.

The most impressive project was Canganu.com, an online shopping website aiming to provide good quality products at a reasonable price for the nearly-100-million population in Vietnam. This is one of the four successful B2C e-commerce startups with three branches in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, 250 orders per day and total revenue of VND2.2-2.5 billion per month.

The Social Resource Allocation (Sora) Project founded by a Filipino startup also attracted great attention from participants. This is a contract-based business exchange system under the motto “No Money – No Problem”. It was designed to act as a barter platform.

Other highlighted projects are Schoolbus, an online teaching and learning platform with live-stream technology for secondary school teachers and students; Kera, an e-learning website for businesses to train staff at a corporate level; EZ4Home, an online showroom for housing interior, with 3D interior created on the web and mobile platforms; Vocap, a solution that helps learners remember some 1,000 words within 30 days by half an hour a day spending on learning; and Regen, a platform that provides the fastest connection between blood donors and recipients.

Head of the Vietnam Silicon Valley Project (VSV) Thach Le Anh said, startups need to answer five questions before they can join the VSV. They are: Are you willing to start up? Will your products and services meet market demand? Are your business solutions convincing? How does your business model work out? and will your products and services be able to replace other alternatives available in the market?. Startups with good answers will become a VSV member and the VSV will be the shareholder of these businesses. This means cooperation between people with ideas and people with money to set up companies. “This is how we connect the ideas with investors,” Thach Le Anh said.

Speaking at the Demo Day 2016, Former Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Quan said Vietnamese startups encountered difficulties due to poor legal framework, experience and investment. However, he believed with wisdom and innovations, Vietnam can beome a startup nation like Israel and the Republic of Korea . The VSV, therefore, has been trying to support Vietnamese startups during the last three years.

However, a startup nation will need to have hundreds of thousands successful startups from R&D activities and technological advancements. Those will form a rinnovative and creative Vietnam. That’s why we need more incubators to help startups become successful, Nguyen Quan said.

The Prime Minister-approved National Innovation Business Startup Ecosystem until 2025 Project targets to fund 800 startup projects and 200 startup businesses until 2020 and 2,000 startup projects and 600 startup businesses until 2025.

Quynh Nga