Tech startups to keep an eye on
Earlier this year , the Ministry of Science and Technology launched the Vietnam Silicon Valley project (www.siliconvalley.com.vn) – a four-month program that offers funding and mentorship to tech startups. It is still unclear how independent and strong these startups will be once they hit the market, although many of Vietnam’s top startups have been able to grow in part because of their relationships with the government.
These are the nine that graduated from the Vietnam Silicon Valley project in October:
1) Astro Telligent or HR.com.vn – A recruitment service that works directly with businesses to source possible candidates through social media. It’s not clear yet if this will be similar to LinkedIn or to a more traditional recruitment site.
2) Chomp – It provides an end-to-end solution for users to create, activate and track cross social marketing and commerce hashtag campaigns. It’s also looking into social commerce.
3) CSK – A cloud service that allows retail businesses to manage their customers and increase sales.
4) Olymsearch – It wants to index all SKUs online.
5) BigTime.vn – An online event ticketing website that will be competing with MuaTicket.vn, SuKien360 and SuKien.net. More are entering a space where Ticketbox.vn and VNTIC.vn were the first movers.
6) Lozi.vn – Lozi.vn is similar to Yelp but its design is similar to Pinterest. Lozi faces strong competition from Foody.vn.
7) VnPlay – Television is still the main medium for Vietnamese consumers, so there are new platforms popping up everywhere from companies both large and small. Pops VN has its own channel for Smart TV while VNG has Zing TV, however VnPlay wants to allow anyone to create a channel and stream content. In other words, it’s heading into YouTube territory. Most of the other dominant television services simply broadcast what’s already on television to mobile devices.
8) VietCreative – A platform for educational games for children. The team allows developers to use this engine and then publishes games on VietCreative.
9) MyMoney.vn and LoanVi.com – These are the two main products from Finsom, a financial tech startup. MyMoney. vn is a personal finance portal and LoanVi. com is a comparison and personal loan financing platform.
Following in the footsteps of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Hanoi-based Topica Founder Institute announces 12 startups it will help mentor:
1) NextTopEvent – An event ticketing service.
2) 9mix – A mobile app for women to share their favorite fashion items.
3) KlassJoy – Still unreleased, it allows students, teachers and parents to interact with each other over education through the mobile app.
4) vLance – A platform for freelancers to connect with potential employers.
5) TinyGuu – It’s a tool for parents to manage and track online content their kids are viewing.
6) ZinMed – Although the main site is already up, this startup is also working specifically on mobile apps for people to keep track of their health.
7) UpLevo – A branding consultancy firm for small businesses. Customers buy a full branding kit from the company for USD29 and can create their own branded and marketing materials.
8) Morbling – A mobile and games studio that focuses on making 3D games for mobile. Sorry iOS folks, all their games are on Android.
9) HiSella – This established company is already an expert at building custom CMSes and is now pushing into working on building custom eCommerce sites for clients.
10) iMap – Focuses exclusively on location data and builds custom location solutions for both consumers and businesses.
11) Antoree – This is another education startup that has built a platform to bring tutors and students together online.
12) Beeketing – A marketing automation tool for online sellers. It basically tracks buyer behavior and upsells or resells to them based on the Beeketing system.
All we have to do now is wait and see who’s left standing in 2015.
Anh Minh-Do is the editor at TechInAsia.com for Vietnam, focusing on technology startups, trends and companies. Minh is on the board of Starthub.vn – a database and forum for startups dedicated to the growth of Vietnam’s business industry.
