Startups register businesses in Singapore, why?

Three years ago, Nguyen Hoang Trung, born in 1992, dropped out of KAIST in South Korea and teamed up with his friends to develop Lozi, a social network which shares information about fashion, places for the youth to eat and aesthetic services.

Lozi has 4 million hits every month, while Lozi’s apps have 600,000 downloads. In late 2015, Lozi received a big investment sum from Golden Gate Ventures from Singapore and DesignOne from Japan.

Before receiving the investments, Lozi was valued at US$2 million. Analysts commented that the 7-digit investment is rarely offered to young businesses like Lozi.

Lozi is not alone. Analysts saidthere is a strong movement of Vietnamese choosing Singapore as the place for them to start up their business.

Nguyen Huu Tuat, CEO of mPos Vietnam, said mPos Vietnam now operates as a subsidiary of Softpay Mobile International, a company that Tuat and his co-workers established in Singapore in October 2014.

MPos Vietnam now develops apps which allow non-cash payment, with which mPos’ devices can connect with smartphones and sellers can turn any smartphone into a mobile payment point. As such, a pavement shop can also accept payment in cards at low costs.  

Besides Vietnam, mPos has also set up businesses in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia while it targets the Cambodian market. 

Nguyen Minh Quy, CEO of Internet Novaon, who also registered business in Singapore, finds it understandable why Vietnamese now like setting up business in Singapore.

“In Singapore, you will need one dollar and two days only to set up a business,” he said. “This is how the government encourages businesses."

Do businesses in Singapore ‘grow up’ faster?

When asked why Lozi decided to declare its birth in Singapore, Lozi Hanoi’s director Pham Quang Huy said Singapore is a developed economy, while the policies are open and welcome businesses from all over the world. 

“Trees, if they are grown on fertile soil, will be able to grow fast,” he said. 

Huy went on to say that all businesses wish to expand their operation scale and reach out to the world market. The business registration in Singapore helps in implementing their plans.

Tuat, a co-founder of Softpay Mobile, said he wants to see the business grow and launch an IPO in the US and Hong Kong in the future.

“If so, our company must not be headquartered in Vietnam,” he said.

The CEO of Novaon also noted that a business established in Singapore can more easily call for investment from investment funds. There are about 40 funds in Singapore.