In February 2020, Grab, South East Asia’s leading ride hailing firm, announced the launch of Grab Ventures Ignite, an accelerator program for early-stage startups, as part of the Grab for Good development roadmap in Vietnam which aims to create greater social and economic benefits for the country through technology.
This initiative is in line with the government’s national strategy to create 10 technology unicorns by 2030. Grab Ventures Ignite signed a strategic partnership with Vietnam’s National Innovation Center (under the Ministry of Planning and Investment). Under the partnership, Grab Ventures Ignite and the NIC will collaborate jointly in planning and executing the GVI program, accelerating the development of digital economy and providing potential startups with support.
The startups will be able to leverage Grab’s strengths and capabilities as a regional tech platform. GVI’s program partners include regional venture capital firm Gobi Partners, Toong – Coworking Space Developer, YKVN, and Amazon Web Services. Participating startups will also benefit from a curated immersion program hosted in Singapore by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority and cross-border sharing with Singapore-based startups. Program winners will be offered investments and in-kind benefits.
The launch of GVI marks the expansion of Grab’s umbrella of startup programs which currently includes Grab Ventures Velocity (GVV), Grab’s flagship startup scale-up program. GVV has so far supported the growth of 15 startups regionally across two batches of the program.
(Sources: Grab; Deal Street Asia)
