In Vietnam, the startup ecosystem is still struggling. Small internet companies aren’t well versed in what it takes to become a serious business. Meanwhile, those very startups routinely complain about the lack of funding available in Vietnam. At the same time, there’s an untapped pool of corporations and conglomerates that are desperately in need of disruption and innovation. Corporations are entrenched with their assets and comfortable with their cashflow. They suffer from the innovator’s dilemma.
Hanwha, a Korean conglomerate with its hand in everything from energy to chemical engineering to life insurance to resorts, is one such corporation. Its total assets amount to over US$110 billion. Now, Hanwha has a new mandate in the form of the DreamPlus Alliance. According to Yong-wook Kim, CEO of Hanwha S&C, DreamPlus Alliance marks the conglomerate’s formal commitment to building and bridging startup ecosystems across Asia:
DreamPlus is the Creative Economy plan in action. Our mission is to form a global alliance of key regional accelerators and to assist promising startups to reach their dreams on the global stage. We will build and develop a support system that will partner with startups to enter, develop and expand successfully in both regional and global markets.
In line with that mission, Hanwha is partnering up with 11 other accelerators in Asia, including the Egg Accelerator in Vietnam, to promote startups and gear up for a demo day in Seoul. The demo day competition, on October 3 and 4, will host 12 startups from the 12 different accelerators. The startup from Vietnam is a startup called Kooltechs, which designs devices to track fitness.
From Vietnam, Sieng Van Tran, founder of the Egg Accelerator, is hopeful towards the alliance.
Egg Accelerator is very honored and please to be part of the this incredible platform which will further enhance our work to connect Startups in Vietnam to the global ecosystem. Our presence in the United Kingdom, Singapore and US will now be enhanced with the inclusion of the Dreamplus Alliance.
Tran has even tied in professor Tom Kosnik from Stanford University to advise and interact closely with startups on the project. The goal for all parties in this partnership is to further connect startups in Asia across the globe. Whether or not a conglomerate like Hanwha can pull it off by supporting startups from below remains to be seen, but it has put US$300,000 on the table for the winner of the demo day, and this number is set to increase every year as the the program matures.
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