Razer eyes Vietnam as power-up for hardware, VC units

Gaming lifestyle brand Razer is looking to expand its hardware business in Vietnam and eyeing potential investments in local startups, CEO Min-Liang Tan said at Tech in Asia’s Saigon Summit held on May 30.

“We’ve got a massive user base over here,” Tan stated. “We do see Vietnam as a hotbed of esports.”

CEO Min-Liang Tan (right) at a fireside chat as part of Tech in Asia’s Saigon Summit 2024 / Photo credit: Tech in Asia

A 2021 report by PR firm Vero and research company Decision Lab indicates that about one-third of Vietnam’s population plays esports games.

In line with this, Tan also announced Razer’s first sponsorship deal in the country with Team Flash.

While Razer has not yet backed any Vietnamese startups, future investments will be likely done through its corporate venture arm zVentures, which focuses on startups in the seed to series A stages. Launched in 2016, zVentures has made about 21 investments, according to Crunchbase data.

Tan also emphasized that Razer is open to partnerships with Vietnamese companies and brands, especially those who want to expand beyond the country.

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Razer, which filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2017, had a majority of its shareholders vote to take the company private in April 2022. Tan attributed this decision to numerous challenges, some of which were “geopolitical in nature.”

Since delisting the company, Tan said that Razer has aggressively grown its services business, including rebranding Razer Fintech to Fiuu in a bid to cater to users outside the gaming market.

Razer’s fan meetup in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / Photo credit: Razer

A prior Tech in Asia analysis suggested that Razer Fintech was struggling to take off in Southeast Asia due to fierce competition.

However, by the end of its 2023 fiscal year, Fiuu’s total payment volume surpassed US$6.6 billion. While impressive, this figure remains a fraction of the transaction volumes handled by industry giants. For instance, Stripe reported processing US$817 billion in transactions for businesses in 2022.