A 2025 Retrospective
For both Vietnam & AVV
Welcome to The Ascent, your monthly inside look at Vietnam’s tech frontier from AVV. As experienced early investors in some of the country’s most iconic companies, we see shifts before they hit the headlines. Each issue distills what’s changing, why it matters, and where the next opportunities are.
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Let’s get to our focus for this edition: a look back at the year for Vietnam’s investment market, and AVV more specifically.
Somehow, the year is already nearing its end. If you’re anything like us, it has gone by with startling speed.
While 2025 continued a challenging stretch for startups and investment across Southeast Asia, there have been some significant wins, both for us here at AVV and the ecosystem more broadly.
Vietnam has been particularly exciting from a macro perspective thanks to new reforms and regulations - a few of which we’ve covered before.
In June, the government unveiled Resolution 68, which named the private sector “the most important driving force of the national economy.” This marked a significant rhetorical shift, as the private sector has sometimes been seen as disadvantaged against the public sector. While the tangible benefits and outcomes of this resolution remain to be seen, the excitement surrounding it is justified.
In another high-level initiative to attract and streamline foreign investment, the government announced plans to create an International Financial Center co-located in Ho Chi Minh City (for global ambitions) and Da Nang (for regional goals). The IFC is still getting off the ground, but it should eventually create a more investment-friendly regulatory space.
On the VC side, Vietnam established a national VC fund while looking to raise US$78 million for investment in its first five years. State involvement could give other investors the confidence they need to deploy further capital here.
Finally, all of this took place in the context of Vietnam achieving exceptional GDP growth, with expansion through the first three quarters of the year hitting 7.9%. This is one of the fastest growth rates in the world, and the government is aiming even higher starting in 2026: 10%, a figure Vietnam has never achieved.
This is not to say that Vietnam hasn’t faced challenges in 2025, such as tariffs, historic natural disasters, and regulatory confusion, but there is no denying that the country has had a very strong year compared to many other economies around the world.
Zooming in on AVV
We’re also taking this opportunity to dive into a few of our ‘wins’ from the past 12 months to show that founders and their teams are still pushing through despite the headwinds.
Within the firm, Adrian Latortue was promoted to Partner in recognition of his initiative and dedication over the last four years.
Below, a selection of portfolio company highlights:
Techcoop’s landmark Series A to continue transforming agriculture
In February, the agritech startup Techcoop secured a US$28 million Series A investment, perhaps the largest-ever Series A round in Vietnam and the largest-ever in agritech in Southeast Asia. We co-led the deal with TNB Aura, while being joined by new investors including Blue Orchard, FMO, and Capria Ventures.
In any case, this validated our belief in Techcoop, highlighted their impressive success thus far, and hinted at the potential of innovation in Vietnam’s agriculture sector, which accounts for roughly 12% of GDP and 60% of employment.
In fact, these figures could give Vietnamese agritech startups an advantage over peers from more industrialized countries.
To paraphrase GP Eddie Thai from a recent Vietnam Today appearance: “There are whole sectors in the world where technology still has to finish penetrating. Those problems are unsolved, but Vietnam has some experience with them. So let’s say manufacturing, agriculture, areas that are historically high labor and somewhat inefficient, but you can bring in the latest technology and get some really exciting companies.”
Obello’s big seed round to help create on-brand content 10x faster
In November, the AI graphic design startup Obello announced US$8.5 million in seed funding led by Obvious Ventures. We were an early investor in Obello, and we continue to back their growth.
At a time when creative industries are increasingly concerned about the potential of being replaced by AI, Obello allows designers to work with AI, instead of simply having their creative output entirely generated by a computer.
Vaudit’s big year helping business owners manage their ad spend
In the digital ad auditing space, our portfolio company Vaudit has had a stellar year.
In July, the startup closed a US$7.3 million seed round led by Mucker Capital, with ongoing participation from AVV, among other investors.
Then, in early December, Vaudit announced that it had audited over US$1 billion in annualized ad spend while submitting over US$100 million in refunds for brands including Accenture, HP, Panasonic, and Volkswagen. This came after Vaudit became one of just 30 companies to receive recognition as a Google Certified Click Auditor.
New, impactful investments
In addition to ongoing support for the portfolio companies discussed above (plus many more), we deployed first checks in three very diverse, exciting startups.
These include ByteRover, the Da Nang-based company building a self-improving memory layer for AI coding agents. Though it is still early days, ByteRover quickly gained popularity on Product Hunt and has attracted interest from potential enterprise customers, as well as other investors.
HealthTech startup PulseTech became our first investment in Bangladesh, an extremely exciting market featuring some of the same economic and demographic fundamentals as Vietnam, though at an earlier development stage. Along with Iterative, we co-led a US$3 million pre-Series A round for PulseTech to continue building its presence in Bangladesh while eyeing future expansion into Southeast Asia.
Finally, we invested US$500,000 in TômTex, an award-winning U.S./Vietnam alternative materials startup. They are currently commercializing their vegan leather alternative, creating a much more sustainable option than traditional leather.
We’re thrilled to see where these startups go next, and are confident they reaffirm our goal of backing bold founders taking on global problems.
Enjoy the brief remainder of your 2025, and see you in 2026!
The AVV team