VinaCapital Ventures, a USD 100 million Vietnam-focused venture capital platform, has made a seven-digit investment in Gostream, a Vietnamese startup that enables streamers to livestream on multiple platforms at the same time, the firms announced in a press statement on January 16.
“With the new capital, we will focus on adding additional personnel to continue researching and developing new products, and to increase marketing and advertising budgets in existing markets in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India,” Pham Liem, co-founder and chief growth officer of GoStream told KrASIA.
“We will implement marketing and advertising [plans] in the US and Europe in 2022 too,” he added.
Founded in 2017, GoStream allows streamers to go live on different platforms simultaneously including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Shopee Live, Lazada Live, and Tiki Live, which enables streamers to build a larger and more loyal community, according to the release.
Currently, the firm works with notable names in the market including Tiki, one of Vietnam’s leading e-commerce platforms, entertainment firm MCV, and public relations firm Gapit Communications, while it also claims to facilitate over 100,000 live streaming sessions on a daily basis.
Despite the growing popularity, the co-founder said that the lack of high-quality livestreamers remains one of the factors that hinder the growth in Vietnam’s live-selling market.
“Social commerce is a combination of shopping and entertainment, so a livestreamer has to be good at attracting fans and selling. A successful livestreamer must be a celebrity in the entertainment world, with a large fan base. At the same time, the livestreamer must be equipped with sales skills, or be able to understand customer psychology,” said Gostream’s co-founder.
He added, “Vietnam’s live-selling market will continue to grow strongly in the next two to three years. Many medium and large enterprises will participate in live-commerce and see this as an official sales channel.”
Vietnam’s digital economy is expected to reach USD 14 billion in 2020, and top USD 52 billion by 2025, with e-commerce driving the most significant growth, according to the Google-Temasek-Bain report released in 2020.
The Vietnamese government also launched a national e-commerce development plan in May last year, which predicts that 55% of its 96 million citizens will shop online by 2025, while e-commerce revenue in the country is expected to top USD 35 billion by the same year, accounting for 10% of national retail and service earnings, according to a news report by VnExpress.