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Thu Huong Le · · 9 min readCan Tiki light up the overseas IPO torch for Vietnam?
Vietnam’s Tiki might become the first homegrown tech startup to take the leap into overseas public markets.
Founder and CEO Tran Ngoc Thai Son has confirmed to Tech in Asia that the ecommerce firm aims to go public sooner than 2025, which was the initial plan. Tiki’s recently announced US$258 million series E round has boosted the 10-year-old company’s valuation closer to the unicorn benchmark of US$1 billion.
TikiNow, the company’s in-house logistics arm, guarantees two-hour delivery for certain products. / Photo credit: Tiki
Bloomberg reported that Tiki is eyeing an initial public offering in the US. It’s rare for Vietnamese firms – let alone unprofitable ones – to pull off an offshore listing. Vietnam-based gaming and entertainment major VNG has been flirting with a US stock market debut for years, but it hasn’t borne fruit so far.
Still, Tiki is ambitious about joining other IPO hopefuls from this region. In May, it established Tiki Global Pte Ltd, a holding entity in Singapore that owns more than 90% of the Vietnam-based entity.
However, executing this dream surely won’t be an easy feat. Even the public listing of regional super app Grab is not yet guaranteed.
Like Indonesia’s Bukalapak – another ecommerce marketplace – Tiki’s focus is squarely on its home turf. Will this be enough to sustain the appetite of international investors? Case in point: Bukalapak’s share price has not taken off even though the company has claimed the honor of being the first tech unicorn from Indonesia to go public.
An Amazon-inspired venture
Inspired by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Vietnamese entrepreneur Tran founded Tiki in 2010 as an online bookseller. Tiki is short for tìm kiếm and tiết kiệm, which means “search and save” in Vietnamese. The name reflects an early vision to give local consumers better and more affordable shopping experiences.
Following in Amazon’s footsteps, Tiki soon diversified beyond books. Today, the Ho Chi Minh City-headquartered company sells products across 30 categories and recently said that it has about 20 million registered users.
Tiki CEO and founder Tran Ngoc Thai Son / Photo credit: Tiki
Tiki’s Amazon-like journey means two things: fast delivery and an obsession with customer service. TikiNow, the company’s in-house logistics arm, guarantees two-hour delivery for certain products – similar to what Amazon Prime promises. Tiki Trading is its retail subsidiary that sells only authenticated products, which resemble those sold by Amazon directly.
To afford rapid delivery like what Amazon and South Korea’s Coupang offer, Tiki has invested heavily in its end-to-end logistics infrastructure. The company says it now owns 20 fulfillment centers and warehouses. In 2020, Tiki also launched TikiNGON, its fresh groceries delivery service, joining a slew of other tech companies that jumped into the space amid the pandemic.
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The Shopee factor
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Considered the “Amazon of Vietnam,” Tiki’s valuation is nearing US$1 billion. Can it stay in the ring with regional powerhouses Shopee and Lazada?
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