VIISA officially seek startups to invest in

On September21, within the framework of the workshop on "Creating start-up ecosystem for Vietnam - Practical lessons from Israel", the Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA) officially launched its website and sought technology startups in the Southeast Asia to invest in.

Accordingly, within one month (from September 21 to October 20), startups will register at www.viisa.vn. VIISA will select startups to come in the training round based on the following criteria: a strong team; idea which has been applied; business expansion and sustainable development in the future.

VIISA partners with Hanoi People's Committee to develop a startup incubator.

It has now initiated the process of calling for applications to select 10 potential startups for a four-month training phase. The students will be provided with important startup skills such as seeking potential customers; call for capital and sales.

The accelerator targets to fund eligible startups with USD15,000 in exchange for a 5 per cent stake in the companies. Especially, VIISA will help the startups to connect to more than 100 entrepreneurs, mentors and investors from large corporations namely Facebook, IBM, FPT, Dragon Capital Group, Hanwha, Grant Thornton, JFDI, BIDV, Golden Gate etc. Outstanding startups will present their ideas to investors to attract follow-on funding of up to USD 500,000 at Demo Day (slated for March 2017).

Along with the networks already available through Dragon Capital and FPT, the teams will also be exposed to Hanwha’s and BIDV’s investment links and the bank’s lending and financial management services.

“Vietnam is one of the most vibrant ecosystems in Southeast Asia. We believe VIISA plays a decent role in helping accelerate the startups from the idea stage to doing real business, which will boost the entrepreneurship ecosystem here and ultimately create values to a wider society,” commented Adrian Tan, VIISA’s program director, in a press statement.