Japan billionaire Taizo Son invests in Vietnam venture capital platform

By Phan Lam

Sat, August 6, 2022 | 4:36 pm GMT+7

Japanese venture capital firm Mistletoe has invested in Hectagon, a leading venture capital funding platform based in Vietnam.

Mistletoe is a hub for startups in the blockchain and crypto industry founded in 2013 by Japanese billionaire Taizo Son, the youngest brother of SoftBank magnate Masayoshi Son. Taizo is also Mistletoe's CEO.

Taizo Son at an Asia startup event in Japan. Photo courtesy of TechinAsia.

Both the firms did not disclose Mistletoe's investment amount.

The CEO and founder at Hectagon is Linh Han, honored on the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 List 2020. He is also co-founder of Vietnam Silicon Valley Capital, better known as VSV, started in 2014 as an accelerator and early-stage venture capital company.

Over the last eight years, VSV has made over 80 investment deals from pre-seed to series B into startups with a total valuation of over $300 million. They include Loship, Base.vn, Modmo, Vulcan, Nerman, Loop POS, Ship60, and Hachi.

Mistletoe's CEO Taizo Son has also become an advisor to Hectagon, along with Samresh Kumar, CEO of VinaCapital renewable energy unit SkyX Solar, and Han Ngoc Vu, CEO of VIB, a leading private bank in Vietnam.

Hectagon's combination of decentralized finance and venture capital is outstanding, Son said, adding the firm’s leadership and teams in concert with Mistletoe would deliver a new concept of venture capital.

Son's investment in Hectagon is part of his plans to invest $100 million in technology startups across Southeast Asia.

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