[HO CHI MINH CITY] A new global competition for startups was launched in Vietnam on Monday (Aug 21), aimed at those with early-stage climate technology projects that want to pilot their solutions in the South-east Asian country.

Called the Net Zero Challenge, they will compete for a slice of the equity-free prize money of 15 billion Vietnamese dong (S$854,800). This inaugural edition of the competition is organised by Singapore’s Temasek Foundation and Vietnamese venture capital firm Touchstone Partners, in partnership with the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies.

Singapore-based Pavilion Capital and Indonesia-focused East Ventures are the competition’s main investor partners.

Temasek Foundation’s head of programmes Lim Hock Chuan said at the launch event in Ho Chi Minh City that the competition will be a “valuable launchpad” for emerging climate solutions, given Vietnam’s “vast resources of human, social and innovation capital”.

“(While) there are a lot of very good innovations from Vietnam that will solve problems unique to Vietnam, we are also inviting solutions from the region and from all over the world,” he said.

Temasek Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Singapore investment company Temasek Holdings. Besides Vietnam, the foundation has organised similar climate-focused competitions in Singapore and Indonesia, offering grants and support for recipients to scale their solutions for full commercialisation.

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“Climate solutions innovators and entrepreneurs can increase their profile, bridge the funding gap, get mentorship and other forms of support, and see how they can leverage Vietnam’s ecosystem here but aim for the global market,” said Lim.

Vietnam, one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia last year, was ranked among the five countries in the world that are most vulnerable to climate change, according to a World Bank report. Vietnam has already made a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality and phase out its use of coal by 2050.

Last year, while the total private funding for climate-tech startups in South-east Asia exceeded US$1 billion, Vietnam startups attracted just 5.3 per cent of that total, said a report by DealStreetAsia.

“Combating climate change is challenging as it requires collective actions from many stakeholders and on a large scale,” said Touchstone’s co-founder and general partner Ngo Thuy Ngoc Tu. “In Vietnam’s context, it is not suitable to apply slower economic growth models but we could focus on balancing development goals with sustainability factors.”

The Net Zero Challenge focuses on climate-tech innovation projects in three main themes: renewables and carbon removal; food systems and sustainable agriculture; and circular economy and waste management.

Eligible teams must develop a minimally viable product and have gained proof of value with the intent to commercialise. The competition is also not limited to startups, with innovators, corporate researchers and scientists also encourage to participate. 

In a message to the participants, Temasek Foundation’s Lim said: “We want to help your innovation, bring it to the market and you can become a big company. Because when you do that, you produce something that will benefit the people, not just in Vietnam, but potentially globally. It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you are from philanthropy, business or government, do you have solutions and innovations? That’s our focus - to help you make an impact on sustainability.”

Also at the launch event was Joseph Low, president of Keppel’s real estate division in Vietnam, who said that the company is working with authorities to develop the third phase of Saigon Centre, a mixed-use complex in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

“We hope Saigon Centre’s Phase III could test some of the innovators’ ideas, to develop a proof of concept for those inventions that come up,” he said. “Through this, we want to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that can build up new solutions, which will help address the ecological concerns and contribute to the climate action in Vietnam.”