Global cash flow poured into Asian markets due to Vietnamese-related developments
Vietnam-based blockchain game publisher Sky Mavis, the company behind the non fungible token (NFT) game Axie Infinity, has raised $7.5 million in a Series A funding led by Libertus Capital, a UK-based venture capital firm, which had also co-led a seed round in DeFi (decentralized finance) platform Zapper last August. Axie Infinity is a virtual world full of fierce, adorable pets, called Axies, which can be battled, collected and used to earn an income. Investors who participated in the round include both existing and new backers such as 500 Startups, Collab+Currency, DeFi Alliance, BlockTower Capital, Animoca Brands, Backed VC, CoinGecko Ventures, and a group of angel investors including American billionaire Mark Cuban, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, among others. The investment will help Sky Mavis expand its team, and scale its Axie Infinity game to millions of users. The startup said it has begun hiring traditional game developers for its scaling-up journey. “I think Axie is an amazing platform. It’s fun and engaging. It’s a game you want to play for hours on end. Add the Axie economy, and you have something special. I’m excited to be part of it”, Cuban said. Sky Mavis was co-founded in 2018 by Vietnamese developer Trung Nguyen alongside Aleksander Leonard Larsen and Jeffrey Zirlin.
The largest Asia-Pacific-focused logistics real estate managing platform ESR Cayman Limited has formed a joint venture with the leading Vietnam-based logistics and industrial real estate developer and operator BW Industrial Development to develop and own a modern industrial park near Ho Chi Minh City. The partnership marks ESR’s entry into the Vietnamese market, expanding its Southeast Asian footprint after establishing itself in Singapore. My Phuoc 4 Industrial Park, which will have a total of approximately 240,000 square metres of logistics and light industrial facilities upon completion, is located north of Ho Chi Minh City in the strategic Binh Duong market, a leading hub of industrial development in Southern Vietnam. The Park will have the ability to cater to a wide variety of local and international tenants, given its prime location with excellent motorway access and connectivity to densely populated areas, major industrial clusters, ports, and airports. BW is currently developing My Phuoc 4 the Park with completion scheduled for August. Besides, ESR will work with BW on the leasing of the Park leveraging its strong roster of customers. Vietnam is an important market in ESR’s strategy and looks forward to welcoming customers to My Phuoc 4.
South Korean internet company Naver has completed its acquisition of Wattpad in a $754 million deal. Wattpad, best known for the user-generated content on its reading app, will boost staff at its Toronto and Halifax headquarters by 50 per cent this year, introducing about 100 new roles. Wattpad’s co-founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen will continue their direction of Wattpad, and that the company will remain based in Canada. Lau, who is CEO, is to report to Jun-koo Kim, the founding CEO of Webtoon, the production wing of which, Webtoon Studios, has worked with the Jim Henson Company; Crunchyroll; Vertigo Entertainment; and Bound Entertainment. Wattpad says that 5 million people of its monthly cohort of 90 million are the writers. And the balance, 85 million readers, would look good to just about any audience-based storytelling enterprise. The company is expected to double their staff and hire 100 people to work in the engineering, marketing and content departments. Now that the deal is completed, Wattpad and Webtoon will have a combined monthly user base of 166 million people. Wattpad alone has 90 million active monthly users, most of them millennials. Naver hopes that Wattpad users will gravitate towards their webtoon platform and vice versa.
Novaland all of a sudden introduced to the public its ecosystem’s new member Nova Consumer Group in purpose to expand its business in the F&B and Nutrition industry. Adding to that, Nova Consumer Group has also acquired Phindeli, a famous coffee local brand in Vietnam, confirmed by both CEO Bui Thanh Nhon of Nova Group and CEO Pham Dinh Nguyen of Phindeli. The Group is now looking forward to being able to compete with other F&B giants, such as Masan or CP Group, and being highly qualified for the fresh production.
Thegioididong has started to sell many kinds of bicycles in front of two Dienmayxanh stores situated near the rural areas of Ho Chi Minh City. Each one is sold for approximately $130. After the holidays, the rate of bicycles sold has decreased rapidly but still is able to make profits with every 15 bikes sold. Thegioididong is planning to expand their business to other nearby provinces outside Ho Chi Minh City. Thegioididong is also collaborating with more than 30,000 small shops to sell their products, after adding cooking equipment to the sale. This act has marked a footstep of Thegioididong on the distribution array.
Sources of information include Dealstreet Asia, Tech In Asia, Nikkei Asia, Cafebiz.
