Where Vietnam’s next big thing in tech will come from

Vietnam is fast becoming Southeast Asia’s next startup hotspot, and as it continues to rise, so have its fintech companies.

Three of Vietnam’s four unicorns are fintech businesses, and in 2023, the vertical was the most active in terms of investments.

But that doesn’t mean fintech is the be-all and end-all – even for Niraan de Silva, CEO of Vietnamese fintech unicorn VNLife.

Photo credit: Sean Hsu / Shutterstock

“I probably see agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry as number one,” de Silva says from the main stage at Tech in Asia’s Saigon Summit when asked about untapped opportunities in Vietnam.

While much bigger in size than fintech, “the amount of innovation in these industries that contribute to economic prosperity is tiny.”

Farming and digital signatures

Indeed, on Tech in Asia’s list of top-funded Vietnamese firms, only one farming company – International Dairy Products – made the list with a US$100 million injection from 2023. But the business, which makes dairy products like pasteurized milk and yogurt, is far from being a tech-focused upstart.

Compared to that company, Vietnam’s agritech startups have not raised a similar level of funding. The largest among the crop is Entobel, which produces animal feed made out of insects, and has raised US$30 million.

These firms are also a far cry from their counterparts in neighboring Indonesia. Like Vietnam, the country also counts agriculture as a major contributor to its economy, but Indonesia has several VC-backed agritech companies, including one unicorn in eFishery.

“I believe there’s a huge amount of underfunded startups with great solutions, whether it’s organic solutions, [or] it could be drone spraying solutions,” de Silva says. “Unfortunately, it’s not in favor for VCs. So it’s up to local entrepreneurs or local businesses to fund these companies.”

A greenhouse farm in Vietnam’s Lam Dong Province that applies IoT solutions from local startup MimosaTEK / Photo credit: MimosaTEK

Agritech aside, another promising vertical for de Silva is a “really boring” one: business process automation.

“We’ve talked about AI and all the cool stuff, but we’re still a paper-based economy. Everything we do is recorded on paper,” the CEO explains. In other words, the country needs to first go digital before AI can make a meaningful impact.

Fintech remains promising

New, clearer regulations incoming