On December 4th, 2018, VIISA announced the three startups graduated from Batch 4 of Accelerator Program, marked by VIISA Investment Day at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
VIISA Investment Day #4 featured five impressive startups from VIISA portfolio, coming from various industries including cybersecurity, facial recognition, and location intelligence platform, to smart apartment ecosystem and online ed-tech platform. More than 100 honorable guests, including investors, mentors, corporate leaders, and startup community figures attended the event.
The startups in VIISA Accelerator Program Batch 4 are SecurityBox, GOONG, and PhyPass. Joining VIISA Accelerator Progam, they received the investment of US$15.000 in cash and an undisclosed amount of in-kind services (such as co-working space, Amazon Web Services, HubSpot, Google Cloud, Mapbox, Zendesk....). The founders also underwent intensive training, from acquiring early customers to avoiding problems such as no market needs or product-mistimed to talking to investors, closing business and investment deals, and developing scalable business models. They came on stage at VIISA Investment, presenting a real business with real customers, recording over $200K in revenue growth and strong interests from top-tier investors in less than 3 months.
Long Nghiem, Founder and COO of GOONG, shared at Investment Day: ”Before participating in VIISA program, we focused on B2C (business-to-customer) model, but we could not find the monetization plan. We thought about changing model to B2B (business-to-business). However, we could not find customers. Joining VIISA Accelerator Program, it was very beneficial to GOONG when not also having VIISA as a strategic partner, but also the network of partners that VIISA introduced to us, help us a lot in clearing the direction ahead and proving product-market fit!”
Looking at the future, Mr. Hieu Vo, CFO of VIISA, shared at Investment Day: “VIISA’s Batch 4 has been most challenging yet exciting so far. We enjoyed various types of great-to-have "issues" on both fronts working with the founders and closing further investments for the alumni. Most importantly, VIISA Accelerator Program doesn’t end on Investment Day, but continue to support our founders for the life of their ventures and beyond. Having two full years in existence, the founding shareholders are convinced with the impacts we have created for the ecosystem. We are optimistic about the future batches to come, starting with VIISA Fintech Lab in early 2019.”
CyHome and Ella Study - 2 startups graduated from VIISA Accelerator program Batch 2 of VIISA Accelerator Program - was also pitching at the event, as the epitome of VIISA startups’ development post-program. CyHome has a great period when the number of customers increases double compared to last year (with 42 apartments with more than 18.000 residences); more than 10 business partners with various services such as payment, service, goods,...which is added great values to customers. Ella Study developed relationships with more than 50 partners worldwide, attracting over 2800 alumni on its platform. In 2018, Ella has reached 400 students with new services covering students’ overseas studying needs: full consultation package until studying successfully, pick-up on arrival and study-tutor abroad.
At Investment Day closing speech, Mr. Tran Huu Duc, CEO of VIISA and Head of FPT Ventures, officially called for startups to participate in the Accelerator Program Batch 5 at VIISA at the website www.viisa.vn starting Dec 10, 2018. VIISA Accelerator Program Batch 5 is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2019.
5 Startups that presented at Investment Day:
- SecurityBox: Supports Enterprises Organizations to have an overview of the cybersecurity problems, then offer optimal solutions to overcome all risks and problems.
- GOONG: A mobile map platform, Goong helps you to quickly reach places, facilitates the process of going out with your friends as well as keeping track of your loved ones.
- PhyPass: Human Recognition and Behavior Understanding for the Physical World using AI
- Ella Study: Online Platform connecting students and Alumni for consultation to make global study simplified
- CyHome: CyHome is a smart apartment ecosystem that aims to change the way people live by developing e-solutions for apartment and building management.
CONTACT PERSON
Long “Leo” PHAM
Program Manager, VIISA
leo@viisa.vn
+84 969 111 472