Proptech firms catch the eye of foreign investors

It is estimated that Vietnam has about 100 proptech companies, 80 percent of which are foreign-owned or receive foreign funding.

Among recent investments, Hotel booking platform Go2Joy Vietnam raised an additional 1.3 million USD from Republic of Korea (RoK) venture capital firm SV Investment just last week.

The travel tech startup has raised a total of 6.1 million USD in investment over the last year. It closed a Series A funding round of 2.5 million USD, led by STIC Ventures, KB Investment, Wonik Investment Partners and Wadiz Platform, in February 2020, and received 2.3 million USD in a Series A funding round led by HB Investment and Platform Partners Asset Management just a few months ago.

Another Vietnamese proptech startup, Citics, bagged 1 million USD in a pre-Series A round from international and domestic investors in March. Investors included Singapore’s Vulpes Investment Management and the RoK’s Nextrans and The Ventures. It had earlier raised 700,000 USD from angel investors.

In March, Vietnam’s Homebase said it had mobilised 125,000 USD from the US-based accelerator Y Combinator (YC). Last December, it secured an undisclosed sum in a pre-Series A funding round led by VinaCapital, US venture capital company Pegasus, and Singapore’s 1982 Ventures.

A.Plus Home, meanwhile, has raised 8 million USD from Japan’s Daiwa PI Partners.

A property market worth around 21 billion USD coupled with a young tech-savvy population are setting the scene for proptech businesses to boom in Vietnam.

The country’s real estate market remains in the early stages of development, with many problems to solve, according to Neil MacGregor, Managing Director of Savills Vietnam. Proptech is able to provide solutions to tackle these problems.

Many Vietnamese are tech-savvy and capable of picking up new technologies quickly, and proptech firms are targeting these people, particularly condo owners and users of real estate apps, he added.

Vice Chairman of Cen Land Pham Thanh Hung said proptech is an emerging market in Vietnam, grabbing major attention from investors and start-ups. Many platforms recording initial success, however, have been acquired by foreign investors, he noted, adding that it is important to develop a “Make in Vietnam” platform in real estate.