Vietnamese tech star suspends startups amid legal dispute, police probe. He denies wrongdoing

KEVIN Tung Nguyen, a prominent Vietnamese tech founder, has temporarily shut down operations at his two startups, JobHopin and Skola.  

Nguyen is in a legal dispute with his wife over the ownership of Skola, an edtech platform registered both in Vietnam and Singapore, according to documents and sources who spoke to Tech in Asia.

In addition, Nguyen is being investigated by Vietnam’s Police Department for Economic Crimes (C03) over allegedly misappropriating funds at Skola. The entrepreneur, however, has denied any wrongdoing.

Named as one of Forbes Asia’s 30 Under 30 in 2019, Nguyen is also known for establishing JobHopin in 2017, which aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to automate job hunting and recruitment.

In an interview with Tech in Asia requested by Nguyen himself after we started looking into these companies, he confirmed that JobHopin failed to close a US$15.6 million series B round in 2023. The majority of the company’s employees – close to 200 at its peak – have either resigned or have been laid off, he added.

Disputes at Skola

Tech in Asia understands that Nguyen’s wife is a majority shareholder of Skola, based on the startup’s register of members in Singapore. The company started out in May 2022 as a Web3 initiative called Skolana, which rewarded learners, particularly high school students, via cryptocurrency.

On its LinkedIn profile, Skola Academy promoted itself as a hub focused on tech training for young students, with the goal of transforming Vietnam into a regional tech powerhouse.

Earlier this year, Skola hired a senior executive who was eventually fired due to underperformance, according to multiple sources. Tech in Asia has been unable to contact the person to verify this.  

After this executive was terminated, he “attempted unauthorised access to Skola’s bank account” in Vietnam, Nguyen claims. In response, Nguyen said he transferred nearly two billion dong (US$106,313) to his personal account “to protect the company’s assets”.

According to Nguyen, he had full authorisation to handle all matters related to Skola and was unlawfully removed as the founding shareholder from the startup in April.

A Skola investor has confirmed with Tech in Asia that investors were aware of the ownership dispute and alleged embezzlement at Skola. Investors are waiting for a settlement between Nguyen and his wife to determine who will continue running the business, the source said.  

Meanwhile, in another e-mail to us, Nguyen said that an arrest warrant issued by the C03 in connection with the allegations was dropped after his lawyers worked to disprove the claims. He added that the police is holding on to the disputed money until both parties resolve the conflict.

Tech in Asia was unable to speak with other Skola investors. We also contacted the lawyer of Nguyen’s wife, but he declined to participate in this story.  

What’s happening with JobHopin?

JobHopin announced a US$3 million series A round in 2020 from investors such as KK Fund, Mynavi Corporation, and Edulab Capital Partners.

At the time of the fundraise, JobHopin reported having a database of 1.4 million job candidates from 2,000 enterprise clients in Vietnam. Called Bunny, its AI-powered matching platform could “scrape” applicants’ resumes on a large scale.

A year later, the startup secured a strategic partnership with SAP Vietnam.

However, JobHopin’s regulatory filings in Singapore show that it has been losing money for the last two years. The company’s loss after taxes stood at US$1.78 million in 2023, up from US$1.47 million in 2022.

In his interview with Tech in Asia, Nguyen acknowledged that his startup was significantly affected when many tech companies, including its biggest clients RedDoorz and Traveloka, began to freeze hiring in early 2023.

As for why JobHopin could not close its US$15.6 million series B, Nguyen explained that due to regulatory issues, it took two years for the company to secure the first US$5.6 million tranche instead of the planned six months.

This delay affected JobHopin’s valuation before the round and its ability to secure the remaining US$10 million, he said.

There were also questions around JobHopin’s AI capabilities. For instance, Bunny’s ability to analyse CVs on a large scale is one of its selling points, as it reduced the need for recruiters to do it themselves.

Clients – typically human resources managers – can subscribe to the platform and buy credits for services such as reaching out to top talent and managing the entire recruitment process. JobHopin only deducted credits when a job seeker accepted an offer.

However, a former senior staffer told Tech in Asia that JobHopin employees were still manually sourcing talent via Linkedin and other platforms at the backend.

“You can’t just scrape CVs and expect to deliver quality services to clients,” the source points out. “It’s crucial to have people who can call and vet these candidates.”

While Nguyen agreed that JobHopin couldn’t achieve full automation, he refuted claims that it was not a genuine AI platform. The AI model was capable of analysing all unstructured data gathered from various platforms about applicants, job descriptions or companies, he added.

Another pivot

As the recruitment market was getting crowded, Nguyen wanted JobHopin to shift from being an “AI-powered headhunter” to focus on selling the “AI engine” to other clients. This approach would let clients easily “turn their career sites into functional job portals”.  

This strategy, however, did not generate sufficient revenue, according to sources. As a result, JobHopin pivoted again to ikiHop in 2022. The name ikiHop was inspired by the Japanese word ikigai, which means “reason for being”.

IkiHop was marketed as a gamified employee engagement platform that uses GPT-4 to educate and reward users through interactive quizzes and personalised learning experiences.

Tech in Asia has contacted companies listed as clients on the ikiHop website. FPT, VNG, and RedDoorz stated that they are not using JobHopin’s latest product despite being identified as customers.  

However, Nguyen said these companies had either endorsed ikiHop at various events or paid for a QR solution that allowed for easy registration at the event. He also provided Tech in Asia with a screenshot of a staff e-mail updating him that VNG Cloud had signed a US$3,600 deal with ikiHop for a business event in 2023.

After June, he expects JobHopin to retain only eight employees.

Despite all these setbacks, Nguyen remains optimistic about turning both JobHopin and Skola around even if he has to “personally inject more cash or bootstrap the whole idea of ikiHop”.

He is also hopeful that he and his team will “have control of Skola again”. TECH IN ASIA