Illustrative image (Source: businessinsider.com)

Telio, the first business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform in Vietnam, has received funding of 22.5 million USD from Vietnamese tech unicorn VNG, raising total investment that it had attracted as of September 2021 to 51 million USD.

One week ago, domestic e-commerce platform Tiki also mobilised 258 million USD in a funding round led by AIA Insurance Inc. The new investment could help the platform shorten its plan to organize an IPO (initial public offering) in the US, which is initially scheduled for 2025.

Meanwhile, Tiki’s main rival – Sea Ltd, the mother company of Shopee – is planning to raise 6.3 billion USD by issuing shares and convertible bonds in 2021. Shopee earlier received 50 million USD in investment from Sea.

At the same time, Alibaba, after pouring more than 4 billion USD into Ladaza, shook hands with Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) to invest 400 million USD in The CrownX of Masan Group. The deal is expected to help Masan complete its online business in Vietnam.

E-commerce has emerged as a growth pillar for the digital economy of Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam. This year, the digital economy of Vietnam is forecast to grow 31 percent to 21 billion USD thanks to a year-on-year rise of 53 percent in e-commerce, and is predicted to hit 57 billion USD in 2025.

Mitch Bitterman, Executive Vice President for E-commerce in Asia of TMX Global said that Vietnam is the third largest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and Thailand. This development trend is expected to continue when the country pushes forward with its national digital transformation project, which is supported by its young population and expanding online shopping habit, he held.

Vietnam's e-commerce market has continuously received huge investment. Major players of Shopee, Ladaza, Tiki and Sendo have been pumped with capital to expand market share and business scale. At the same time, multinational firms such as Grab, Gojek and Amazon have also shown interest in the promising market.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese giants such as Masan, Vingroup, Viettel and The gioi Di dong have also switched their focus onto e-commerce.

Industry insiders held that more merge and acquisition (M&A) deals will take place in the time to come, making the Vietnamese market more attractive but with fiercer competition./.