Vietnam’s Mobile World mafia

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Hello readers,

You’ve heard of the Gojek mafia or the Lazada mafia, but I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the Mobile World mafia. Heck, if you live outside Vietnam, you’ve probably never even heard of the company.

But the founders of Mobile World – Vietnam’s largest electronics retailer – have done well for themselves. They’ve become millionaires after selling their shares when the company went public in 2014.

Now, one of these founders, Anh Huan Dinh, is plowing the money he earned back into the startup ecosystem with the launch of Ficus. A holding company in Singapore, Ficus owns a string of businesses across retail, logistics, and F&B in Vietnam.

And as my story, which got picked up by various Vietnamese and tech media, revealed, Ficus got some serious backing from a mega mafia – the Alibaba crew.

As is with all things in life, connections matter, and Dinh is in some very privileged company.

— Terence Lee, Tech in Asia Editor in chief

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