Singapore's Golden Gate Ventures opens Vietnam offices

Golden Gate Ventures is opening two offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as part of the Southeast Asian venture capital fund’s plans to increase investments in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem.

The firm’s founding partner Vinnie Lauria has moved to Ho Chi Minh City to lead operations, it said in a release on Monday.

Golden Gate Ventures, on the same day, embarked on a partnership with National Innovation Center (NIC), a unit of Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, to jointly support the country's startup ecosystem. The pair also plan to help Vietnamese startups build regional businesses.

NIC director Vu Quoc Huy said Vietnam's entire ecosystem attracted a record $1.4 billion of investment last year and the number of newly-established enterprises in the first four months of this year rose 12.3% year-on-year and 32% compared to the same period of 2020.

“We’re expecting investments to double in the next three years,” Huy said at a ceremony held in Hanoi for launching their new partnership.

Over the past few years, Vietnam has been attracting strong investments thanks to forecasts of high growth in domestic consumption, fast-growing middle-class Asia, and increasing post-pandemic demand in the internet economy.

Venture capital firms have in recent years been seeking opportunities outside China and the U.S. and China, and Southeast Asia, home to 650 million people, is a key destination. The region’s internet economy is estimated to double to $363 billion by 2025, according to an industry report by Google, Singapore’s state investor Temasek Holdings, and Bain & Co.

Golden Gate Ventures already has offices in Singapore and Indonesia, the region’s most populous country, followed by Vietnam.