SINGAPORE-BASED Golden Gate Ventures is setting up 2 new offices in Vietnam, located in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, to capture opportunities in the country’s rapidly-growing tech scene, the firm said in a press release on Monday (May 30).

Golden Gate has also inked a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnam National Innovation Centre (VNIC) to support local entrepreneurship. The venture firm’s founding partner Vinnie Lauria has relocated to Ho Chi Minh City to open the new offices.

Founded in 2011, Golden Gate has backed over 60 South-east Asian startups across its 4 funds, such as classifieds platform Carousell and payments processor Xendit. It sees the Vietnam offices complementing its presence in Singapore and Indonesia to form a “startup golden triangle” in the region. 

Golden Gate started to plan its Vietnam expansion as far back as 2019, when it co-hosted a venture summit there, noted Lauria. 

“Despite the pandemic, we were committed to get boots on the ground and make our efforts truly local. We spent the last year working around Covid-19 restrictions so my family and I could move to Vietnam, understand and appreciate local culture, and ensure senior leadership was on the ground,” he said. 

The firm cites gaming and direct to consumer (D2C) as key segments to watch. Gaming generated revenues of almost US$530 million in 2020 in Vietnam, double that of 2015, data from the VNIC. showed. 

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Other global tech investors have similarly flocked to Vietnam, drawn by its fast-growing middle class and highly-skilled workforce. The country’s startups attracted a record high US$1.4 billion worth of capital in 2021, 1.6 times that of 2019 levels, according to a report by Do Ventures and the VNIC.

Vietnam continues to see more startups forming. Newly established enterprises in the first 4 months of 2022 have increased by 31.9 per cent from 2 years ago, said Vu Quoc Huy, director at the VNIC.

“(Coupled) with the positive momentum of foreign investment, greater recognition of Vietnam’s potential across the startup ecosystem, and Vietnamese startups reaching a new level of sophistication, we are expecting investments to double in the next 3 years,” he added.