Delving into Vietnam’s hidden unicorn

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Hello readers,

When I was in school, I had a classmate who was an academic dark horse. Throughout the semester, they were just one of many students around, but when exam results came out at the end of the year, they’d be at the top of the class.

Vietnamese tech company VNLife is just like this classmate of mine – it’s one of Southeast Asia’s unicorns, but it’s been pretty keeping a pretty low profile relative to the other big names in the region.

Today we look at:

• How VNLife achieved unicorn status and what lies ahead for the company
• What this cloud communications platform plans on doing with its latest round of funding
• Other newsy highlights such as iSeed’s new Southeast Asian micro-fund and Razorpay’s newly attained unicorn status

Vietnam’s hidden unicorn

VNPay is one of the largest QR code payment networks in Vietnam, but its parent company VNLife is relatively unknown to most consumers. Founded in 2007 as an SMS banking enabler, VNLife is a hidden unicorn and has been quietly working toward becoming one of the country’s biggest tech companies.

• Symbiosis: Aside from its VNPay network, VNLife is also powering the mobile apps of the country’s 22 banks. It eschews the traditional super-app strategy in favor of building a constellation of super apps, with one for each of its partners. This relationship with banks gives the company access to data on a consumer’s transactions and credit-worthiness.
• Painting a complete picture: The next step for VNLife is to attain data that will help it put together a complete portrait of customers. It has travel booking service VNTravel, runs Vietnam Airlines’ app, and has its “new retail” arm to help Vietnam’s large and small enterprises sell goods both online and offline. This gives it access to travel and consumer transaction data.
• Stiff competition: While it is dominant as a banking software provider, VNLife is up against some strong competitors in the race to be a leading super app. Aside from homegrown rival MoMo, regional giants Grab and Shopee are also contenders in the arena. Plus, local telcos are beginning to pilot mobile money offerings, extending digital payments to Vietnam’s rural population.

Read more: Vietnam’s newest unicorn has been hiding in plain sight

Flying higher

Beep! You have one new message. Amsterdam-based cloud communications platform MessageBird announced that it has raised US$200 million in a series C funding round led by Silicon Valley’s Spark Capital. This brings the company’s total valuation to US$3 billion.

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