Shark Binh’s Venture Fund Seeks E-Commerce Startups

DNHN - The move is an effort to boost the market amid what has been called a “startup winter” in 2023.

The NextUp startup training and acceleration programme of the Next100 Investment Fund (part of the NextTech Technology Group) has just relaunched its 2024 season. NextUp 2024 will accept registrations and pre-selections from 18 March to 12 April 2024, and the training course will begin in May in both in-person and online formats.

In addition to the participation of technology startups as in previous seasons, the focus of NextUp 2024 is on startups selling through e-commerce channels.

NextUp 2024 will accept registrations on the next100 website, with pre-selections from 18 March to 12 April 2024, and the training course will begin in May in both in-person and online formats.

NextTech said that NextUp’s mission is to incubate, support and invest in entrepreneurs who create and sell consumer products through direct online retail (D2C), contributing to strengthening Vietnam’s competitiveness in cyberspace.

Accordingly, each quarter, NextUp will seek out and select entrepreneurs who are passionate about the consumer goods sector to provide them with knowledge and skills in starting and running an online retail business. Within one month, they will be trained by leading experts in e-commerce.

At the end of each course, the startups will develop and defend their business plans before an investment board headed by Shark Binh (Nguyen Hoa Binh). If chosen by the “sharks”, they will have the opportunity to receive an investment of up to 1 million USD to realise their startup dreams.

In addition to capital and knowledge, startups participating in the programme will also receive support in terms of facilities and lean startup services; a network of relationships with the supply and production chain; an optimised online marketing and communications programme; a formula for successful online sales operations and management; a world-class logistics and order fulfilment network; modern software tools and data technology; the capacity to expand into markets in Southeast Asia; and the opportunity to participate in fundraising on the Shark Tank Vietnam programme.

In addition, NextUp also opens up opportunities to connect with a large network of investors, strategic partners and major brands, opening up opportunities for startups to expand their production scale, improve product quality and optimise their supply chain. Cooperation and sharing of experience from successful people in the same field will help startups avoid mistakes and develop more sustainably.

Interested startups can register on the programme’s website at https://next100.vc/contact/.

This is an effort to boost the market amid what has been called a “startup winter” in 2023. According to the 2023 Vietnam Open Innovation Ecosystem Report by BambuUP, in the first nine months of 2023, the number of investments in Vietnamese startups decreased by 40% in terms of number and 13% in terms of value.

In the context of a gloomy global economy, venture capital activities in Vietnam continue to slow down, marking a two-year decline since 2021.

In the first nine months of 2023, the total value of venture capital deals in Vietnam decreased by 13%, reaching a total of 427 million USD. This trend is even more evident when only 56 transactions were recorded, a 40% decrease in the number of deals. This is also the lowest level since 2018.

The number of investment deals in startups has decreased significantly on the small and medium-sized fundraising scale. Deals with investments of less than 500,000 USD have witnessed a decrease of up to 50%. In the scale of 10-50 million USD, the number of investment deals has decreased but not significantly and remains at a higher level than before 2022.

The predecessor of NextTech Group was Hoa Binh Software Solutions Joint Stock Company (Peacesoft), a company founded by Shark Binh when he was a student at Hanoi National University in 2001.

Shark Binh, whose real name is Nguyen Hoa Binh, is currently the Chairman of NextTech Group, which owns many well-known brands such as mPoS, VIMO, Boxme, FastGo, etc. Binh is not only known for his role as an investor in Shark Tank Vietnam but is also considered a “confidant” of Vietnamese startups with more than 20 years of successful startup experience. It is also from this programme that the name “Shark Binh” became known and is widely used whenever he is mentioned. Perhaps because he has experienced the difficult years of starting a business, Binh always has programmes to support startups.

Binh once shared that the social responsibility of leading businesses is to guide and support the next generation of startups.

“Having experienced and empathised with the loneliness and deprivation in the early stages of starting a business, NextTech wants to become a confidant and a launch pad connecting Vietnamese technology startups with hundreds of thousands of businesses and tens of millions of customers in Vietnam, and then expanding into the Southeast Asian region through NextTech Group’s Digital Economy Ecosystem,” said Shark Binh.

Mai Anh