From coding farm to VC destination: Vietnam's rapid rise

VIETNAM has long been associated as South-east Asia's coding farm, where talent and wages are in the sweet spot for companies to use it as a base for their technical development.

But there's something in the water that's attracting venture capital investment into the heart of the Mekong Delta.

Vietnam's startup ecosystem has experienced a hockey stick-shaped growth in funding, with funding soaring from US$44 million in 2015 to hit US$127 million in 2018. This growth continued through 2019 with Vietnam gaining US$1.4 billion or 18 per cent of the US$7.7 billion invested in South-east Asia.