Proptech is rapidly growing in Vietnam, fuel by the country’s young demographics, tech savvy population and available funding and incentives for tech startups, according to JLL Vietnam, a commercial real estate services firm.
In Vietnam, the development of proptech has mostly been prominent in the market segments of residential and office, with more than 50% of proptech players active in the country serving the two sectors, JLL says.
As the industry grows, the company notes a trend that’s begun to emerge: proptech startups partnering with fintechs. It cites for example property management companies trying to connect and embed e-wallets into their property management apps to improve services and user experience, as well as real estate listing platforms announcing partnerships with e-wallet providers for easier collection of service fees from users.
Vietnam proptech ecosystem map
According to FinREI Investments JSC, a fintech startup focusing on real estate, there are currently 56 proptech companies active in Vietnam. These provide services including listing and marketplace platforms, tech-enabled brokerage, investment and crowd-financing, property management and the Internet-of-Things (IoT), co-working spaces, construction and utilities, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), valuation and analytics, hotel management, and leasing and renting.
About 80% of players in the market are foreign startups or startups funded by foreign investors, according to JLL.
FinREI compiled in a map all of the Vietnamese proptech ecosystem, and according to the visual, the most developed segment of proptech in Vietnam is co-working spaces, with 14 players. Notable companies and brands include Dreamplex, Start, Saigon Coworking and Toong.
Co-working space startup Toong was established in Vietnam in 2015 and has since expanded across Indochina, opening locations in Lao and Cambodia. US shared workspaces giant WeWork opened its first location in Vietnam in December 2018.
Another developed segment within the Vietnamese proptech industry is listing and marketplaces. Platforms like Batdongsan and MuaBanNhaDat are making it easier for users to list their properties either for sale or for rent. Batdongsan is the biggest proptech company in Vietnam, recording about seven million visitors per month, much higher than its competitors, according to JLL.
DiaOcOnline, a leading online real estate network in Vietnam backed by IDG Ventures Vietnam, covers all major features in the industry including market research, offline trading-floor network, property marketing and distribution, and property management and leasing.
The Dot Property Group, a Lifull Connect company, claims to be Southeast Asia’s leading real estate marketplace with a network of ten online platforms that cumulated more than 21 million visits in 2018. The company was started in 2013 in Thailand before expanding across the region and entering Vietnam in 2016.
Vietnamese proptech startups providing brokerage services include Propzy, a full-stack real estate platform that originates and facilitates property sale and leasing transactions, and Rever, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage company. Rever raised US$4 million from VinaCapital Ventures in June, while Propzy is planning on raising US$25 million in a Series B funding round later this year. Propzy has so far secured a total of US$12 million in funding since 2016.
RealStake, which was established in Singapore in 2018 and now has subsidiaries in Thailand and Vietnam, provides a platform that allows users to easily invest in fractional ownership of real estate.
Luxstay, a Vietnamese startup founded in 2016, provides an online platform that connects homeowners looking for short-term rentals with tourists or business travelers. The company raised US$3 million in a bridge round in December 2018, and at that time, it claimed to have a network of 10,000 properties in the country.
Besides proptech companies, the Vietnamese proptech ecosystem also includes accelerators and community builders that more broadly serve the Vietnamese startup ecosystem.
These include for example Startup.vn, Zone Startups Vietnam, Topic Founder Institute, Vietnam Silicon Valley, as well as HCMC-based startup hub Saigon Innovation Hub, and renowned accelerator and early-stage venture fund 500 Startups Vietnam.
