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Thu Huong Le · · 7 min readInside the founders’ feud tearing Alterno apart
In this 2023 YouTube video, Kent Nguyen, co-founder and then-CEO of Alterno, unveiled his homemade sand battery – a scrappy prelude to the startup’s grid-scale prototype.
Founded around two years ago, the Vietnam-based firm bet on sand batteries’ potential as a game-changing fix for soaring power bills. The pitch seized investors’ attention.
In 2024, Alterno raised capital from Antler, The Radical Fund, UntroD Capital Asia, and more. The startup also won the Net Zero Challenge 2023, a competition sponsored by Touchstone Partners – one of its investors – and Temasek Foundation.
But just a year after these gains, Alternō is mired in a feud between its founders.
(From left) Alterno’s original three co-founders: Hai Ho, Nam Nguyen, and Kent Nguyen / Image credit: Tech in Asia
Kent left Alterno in 2024 and has been in a year-long fight with his two co-founders, alleging he was wrongfully terminated and never properly compensated for his shares. He has been documenting his narrative in a sprawling blog series, referring to the dispute as a “sand battery saga.”
Such a public blowup is rare in Vietnam’s startup scene.
The other co-founders, Hai Ho and Nam Nguyen, have fiercely denied all allegations, dismissing them as a smear campaign driven by Kent’s personal agenda.
When contacted by Tech in Asia for comment, Alterno sent a 14-page response that did not mention its former CEO by name, referring to him as a “bad leaver” instead.
After suing Alterno for wrongful termination in a Vietnamese court, Kent Nguyen is now threatening legal action in Singapore over the valuation of his shares.
Tech in Asia contacted Antler Vietnam, The Radical Fund, and Touchstone Partners for this story. Only Touchstone Partners replied with a statement.
Brain behind the sand battery
The ex-CEO insists that Alterno was built on his sand battery idea, which was inspired by a concept from Finland.
Kent says he had successfully tested his homemade battery on November 4, 2022 – days before joining Antler Vietnam with Ho. Both were executives at the now-defunct travel startup Triip.me: Ho was the CEO and co-founder while Kent served as CTO from 2018 to 2019.
Nam later joined them at Antler, completing the founding trio behind Alterno.
Cause of termination
Shares dispute and alleged contract breach
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One side says he was ousted and shortchanged. The other says he’s bitter and spinning tales. An unusually public fallout shakes up a climate tech startup in Vietnam.
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