Launching National Startup Initiative

On March 30, National Startup Initiative workshop took place in Hanoi. About 50 guests including the leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education and Training, The Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, VINASA and the representatives from other important components in the startup ecosystem such as investment funds, enterprises, associations, educational institutes etc. attended this program.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam delivered the opening speech titled “Promoting National entrepreneurship”. Next the participants discussed such topics as the role of each component in the startup ecosystem, how to build a start-up ecosystem from the perspective of science and technology, spotting the key problem which needs solving in order to promote entrepreneurship in Vienam as well as  proposing initiatives to make Vietnam a start-up nation.

Also in the framework of the program, FPT and Dragon Capital Group signed a cooperation agreement on the establishment of Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA for short). VIISA will be an open-ended fund with the participation of many large enterprises and investment funds. FPT and Dragon Capital Group are the founders. The fund aims to train, invest and support start-up groups in the fields of information technology, mobile, internet and finance in order that they will become successful businesses. 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 Capital Ventures have invested more than USD 1 million in the startups inside and outside FPT. Some startups affirmed their position in the community. CyRadar was named among Asia’s top 10 most promising tech startups by Echelon. ANTS had hundreds of large customers and maintained an annual growth rate of over 100%. ELSA was named as the winner of the SXSWedu Launch startup competition.