Venture capital firm Nextrans to open $50-mln Vietnam-focused fund

South Korea's venture capital company Nextrans will launch a $50 million fund focused on Vietnam next month to further invest in the nation’s tech startup ecosystem.

“In our upcoming fund, we will continue investing in early-stage startups in not only emerging sectors such as wealthtech, proptech, software as a service (SaaS, electric cars, and fintech,” the Hanoi-based Nextrans Vietnam announced Tuesday.

The new fund will also seek opportunities in sustainable growth areas like food waste and food safety solutions.

“Our check size could be up to $3 million,” the company said, adding that it has financially supported 32 companies in its current portfolio, which includes homegrown leading e-commerce site Tiki, and several business platforms in other areas like Base.vn (corporate solutions), TopCV and Viec.co (job matching), and BuyMed (pharmaceuticals).

Nextrans Vietnam said it would start on October 28 in Ho Chi Minh City the third batch of its 10-week Venture Capital Foundation program, an initiative promoting the Vietnamese startup ecosystem to catch up with regional countries in terms of scale and professional capability. Nextrans started to invest in Vietnam in 2015.

Last week, leading Vietnamese asset and investment company VinaCapital said its venture capital platform VinaCapital Ventures planned to launch its second $100 million fund next year, focusing on providing growth capital. VinaCapital Ventures II will be for sizes up to $10 million per investment at the Series A+ and Series B stages.

VinaCapital had more than $3.7 billion in assets under management as of the end of 2021.