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STARTUPS

Sky Mavis, the owner of the Mavis, in reference to Sky Mavis’s Ronin validator nodes and
popular NFT (non-fungible Axie DAO validator nodes being breached by hackers on March
token) game Axie Infinity, has 23. This was one of the most malicious attacks ever against a
announced a $150 million fund- blockchain project, with more than $620 million in cryptocurrency
ing round led by Binance with stolen. “With support from Binance and other industry leaders,
the participation of Animoca we will be able to quickly expand the validator set from five to 21
Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Para- validators to ensure the security of the Ronin network,” said Mr.
digm, and Accel Partners. “We will refund all users’ lost funds Trung. Prior to this, Sky Mavis said it had raised $152 million in
and implement strict internal security measures to prevent a Series B round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and investment
future attacks,” said Mr. Nguyen Thanh Trung, CEO of Sky funds such as Accel and Paradigm.

Aemi, a B2B e-commerce startup in Vietnam’s cosmetics sector, such as images and content to
has successfully raised $2 million from Alpha JWC Ventures, support product communication.
January Capital, Venturra Discovery, FEBE Ventures, and a Established in November 2021,
number of angel investors. The new funds will help Aemi’s e- Aemi was born from a desire to
commerce platform conquer the domestic market, taking the create an e-commerce platform
cosmetics and healthcare segment as the core. In addition, the specializing in wholesale cos-
platform will continue to improve features, from catalogue man- metic products in Vietnam. It
agement and order management to sales interaction support. It was founded by CEO Vu Kim Ngan, an ex-manager at Bain &
is also completing a library of marketing materials on the platform Company, and CTO Nguyen Qui Hieu, who was a senior man-
for small businesses to take advantage of high-quality resources, agement engineer at Grab and One Mount Group.

Vietnamese agri-tech startup its research and development purposes. In Vietnam’s agri-
Koidra successfully raised $4.5 cultural sector, Koidra’s technology allows farmers to monitor
million in a seeding round led the growing environment of plants and helps farmers make
by Ospraie Ag Science (OAS), optimal decisions about the climate of the growing area. “We
with the participation of Amri- are impressed with Koidra’s autonomous growing technology,
tam Holdings, Cavallo Ven- and its portfolio of clients, which include some of the largest
tures, and Foothill Ventures. greenhouses and indoor farms in North America,” said Mr.
The new funding will go to improving the core technology of Thomas Wiltrout, Director of Ospraie Ag Science (OAS).
Koidra’s greenhouses, farms, and factories. Koidra also aims “Their strengths fit perfectly with our objective of investing
to accelerate the recruitment of staff with experience in tech- in innovations that help farmers do more with less environ-
nology and the construction of farming and greenhouses for mental impact.”

Real estate technology startup RETIhas successfully raised capital most effective and convenient way.”
from CyberAgent and VIC Partners in a seeding round. The value According to Mr. Nguyen Minh
of the deal was not disclosed. The new investment will help RETI Tuan, CEO of CyberAgent Capital,
find a transparent and effective solution to digitize the real estate the passion and understanding of
buying and selling process in a manner suitable for the Vietnamese the real estate market as well as
market. “Two players in the real estate market that are fast- the goal of bringing favorable
growing but still lack transparency in transactions are sales agents values to Vietnam’s real estate
and customers,” said Mr. Nguyen Anh Ngoc, CEO and Co- market among RETI’s founders are the key factors in CyberAgent
Founder of RETI. “The goal of RETI, therefore, is to create an Capital participating in this investment. “We are excited to
Online-to-Offline (O2O) platform to support them in implementing accompany and support the RETI team in realizing their vision
real estate transactions as well as real estate investment in the for Vietnam’s real estate market in the near future,” he said.

Vietnamese startups have the Group, SKSF 2022 Batch #3 remains consistent with its orien-
opportunity to receive equity tation of offering in-depth support in line with the needs and
grants of up to $350,000 from desires of startups, with a focus on increasing mentoring
the third season of the SK activities and sharing capital raising skills. The program
Startup Fellowship (SKSF Batch continues to cooperate with the Business Startup Support
#3 2022) of South Korea’s SK Center (BSSC) to add value to startups by creating deep con-
Group. SKSF is an annual pro- nections in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem. A total of nearly $40
gram organized by the SK Group with the goal of detecting million has been invested in SKSF member startups such as
early-stage startup talent and supporting them to develop and Validus, MindX, Luxstay, Logivan, Phenikaa Maas, Palexy,
also building long-term companionship. According to the SK Gimo, Earable, and Med247.

36 | VIETNAM ECONOMIC TIMES | MAY 2022 www.en.vneconomy.vn