Building a startup ecosystem to incubate technology "unicorns"

Kinhtedothi – To elevate the national innovative startup ecosystem, help Vietnam truly become a regional startup hub, and produce many “unicorns”, in the coming period, more breakthrough policies are needed.

This is also the viewpoint of General Secretary To Lam in the article "Private economic development - a lever for a prosperous Vietnam".

The ecosystem lacks connectivity

Our Party and State always pay special attention to science, technology and innovation, considering this one of the top national policies for rapid and sustainable development. In particular, innovative startups are one of the new growth drivers.

This viewpoint was once again affirmed by General Secretary To Lam in the article “Developing the private economy – a lever for a prosperous Vietnam”. General Secretary To Lam affirmed that it is necessary to promote the wave of startups, innovation, digital transformation and application of new technology. This is the key factor to help the private economy break through and reach international level.

General Secretary To Lam directed that it is necessary to form a strong startup ecosystem, creating conditions for startups and "technology unicorns" named Vietnam to reach international level.

The innovative startup ecosystem in Vietnam is not yet complete.

In fact, over the past decade, Vietnam's innovative startup ecosystem has grown strongly, promoting the emergence of pioneering businesses applying new technologies and new business models, ready to compete in the global market.

However, the number of Vietnamese unicorn startups is still small, so a strong ecosystem is needed to incubate the next generation of "unicorns".

Assessing the innovation startup ecosystem in Vietnam, Director of the Department of Startups and Industrial Enterprises (Ministry of Science and Technology) Pham Hong Quat said that Vietnam's innovation startup ecosystem has developed strongly over the past decade. In 2024, Vietnam's innovation ecosystem ranked 56th in the Global Startup Ecosystem Index of Startup Blink.

Currently, the Vietnamese innovative startup ecosystem has more than 208 investment funds, 79 incubators and 35 business promotion organizations. These are important pillars that help startups overcome the difficult initial stage and can go further in expanding their scale and conquering the international market. However, we still face some limitations such as the lack of connection between investment funds and support organizations, and the decline in investment capital in technology startups.

In addition, the quality of services provided by intermediaries to startups tends to be low; there are financial gaps for early-stage startups, especially innovative startups and projects based on engineering and science; there is a lack of research resources; universities are limited by the transfer of intellectual property and technology, and lack skills and resources to transfer technology and commercialize research products...

Need more breakthrough policies

Vietnam’s innovative startup ecosystem has basically passed the first stage and is entering the stage of expansion and connection with other innovative startup ecosystems in the world. However, to soon have more “unicorns” in the startup field, Vietnam still has a lot of work to do.

Sharing experience in building policies to develop Korea's creative startup ecosystem, Mr. Lim Jungwook - Deputy Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises and Startups of Korea recommended that the State should have support policies, create mechanisms to promote ecosystem development, and create corridors to help creative startups develop.

According to Mr. Pham Hong Quat, in order to elevate the national innovative startup ecosystem to help Vietnam truly become a regional startup center, producing many "unicorns", in the coming period, there needs to be more breakthrough policies in creating resources and markets for innovative startups and promoting international cooperation and linkages, improving capacity for domestic innovative startups.

It is necessary to quickly build and perfect the legal corridor, create unity and synchronization in building, amending and supplementing mechanisms, policies, and allocating resources to promote innovation and creative startups. At the same time, supplement new regulations within the current legal framework, under the authority of the Government. Clarify the concept and content of innovation and creative startups.

In particular, the ecosystem needs to change its mindset in construction and development, from “closed” to “open”. Expanding connections, cooperation, and exploiting mutual resources among components in the ecosystem. Innovative startups also need to proactively and actively become partners with entities in the ecosystem, instead of just being recipients of support.

At the local level, there is a need for creative and specific policy solutions to attract resources for innovative startups, especially effectively exploiting the resources of experts and consultants from international organizations and the network of Vietnamese students, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors abroad.

Enterprises, corporations, localities, and socio-political organizations also need to increase ordering and using products and services from start-ups, promote the development of the market for innovative products...

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/kien-tao-he-sinh-thai-khoi-nghiep-uom-tao-ky-lan-cong-nghe.html