These are the 9 startups that the Vietnamese government is incubating

In October 2013, we reported that the Vietnamese government was intent on fostering startups and building up the ecosystem. In February this year, the Ministry of Science and Technology officially launched the Vietnam Silicon Valley project. The four-month program – replete with seed funding, mentorship, and connections – hosted nine startups. They span from social media to finance to events booking.

The diversity of the startups is a testament to the openness of the Ministry of Science. But it is not clear how independent and strong these startups will be once hitting the market. After all, startup guru Brad Feld notes that when governments get into the accelerator business, the effort is suspect.

That being said, note that many of Vietnam’s top startups have been able to grow in part due to their relationships outside and inside the government. These are the nine that graduated from the Vietnam Silicon Valley project this October. Here are the nine below:

1. Astro Telligent aka HR.com.vn – As its name implies, this is a recruitment service that leverages social media. It works directly with businesses to source for possible candidates via social media. It’s not clear yet if this will appear more like LinkedIn or a traditional recruitment site.

2. Chomp – This is a digital marketing service targeted at social network marketing. Chomp provides an end-to-end solution to self-create, activate, and track cross social marketing and commerce hashtag campaigns. It’s also looking into social commerce.

3. CSK – CSK is a cloud service that allows retail businesses to manage their customers and increase sales.

4. Olymsearch – Retail is a hot topic in Vietnam these days with Vingroup getting into ecommerce. Olymsearch seeks to simplify that by being the Google of online shopping. In other words, it wants to index all the SKU’s online.

5. BigTime.vn – This is a product from a company called TechElite. It competes in the event space, which is an area that is increasingly crowded. MuaTicket.vn, SuKien360, SuKien.net, and more are entering a space where Ticketbox.vn and VNTIC.vn were the first movers.

See: Ministry of Science and Tech in Vietnam pours $110 million into startups

1. Lozi.vn – Lozi.vn is basically a Facebook for food, or a Yelp. But its design will remind you more of Pinterest. Lozi faces strong incumbent competition from Foody.vn, which already dominates food recommendations after it went up against diadiemanuong.com.

2. VnPlay – Television is still the main medium of consumption for Vietnamese consumers, so there are new platforms popping up from companies both large and small: Pops VN has its own channel for Smart TV, VNG has its Zing TV, and more. But this startup also 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 just broadcast what’s already on television to mobile devices.

3. VietCreative – This startup, founded by a solo engineer, is building a game engine for education games for children. The team allows developers to use this engine and then publishes games on the VietCreative education games platform.

4. MyMoney.vn and LoanVi.com – There 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.