Women’s Initiative for Start-ups and Entrepreneurship (WISE)
8 June 2021: Hien Tu founded WISE in 2017 with the aim of creating a network of women-owned and led start-ups in Vietnam. Although the start-up ecosystem in Vietnam was not the ‘Silicon Valley of Asia’ it is understood to be today, Hien Tu recognised the importance of a well-developed and equitable private sector as crucial to the country’s longer-term development trajectory.
Women Founders are not on an equal footing in Vietnam
Like many start-up ecosystems in both developing and developed economies around the world, it was clear to Hien Tu that women did not have an equal footing in Vietnam’s start-up sector. Women founders in Vietnam lacked the support of organisations that exist in countries like the US, Canada and Australia, which specifically support equal opportunities for women in the sector.
Recognising this gap, Hien Tu founded WISE to build programs that target support to women working in the start-up space. Today, WISE delivers capacity building, mentorship, incubation, finance and community building initiatives to support women who are establishing or keen to grow their start-up.
Connecting women to investors is key to increasing access to finance
Hien Tu points to a number of specific challenges that women face in Vietnam’s start-up sector. One of the major challenges is access to finance: only three per cent of total venture capital is provided to women-led start-ups. Unconscious bias plays a big role in how women-led start-ups are perceived by investors. WISE looks to address this bias by running women-only accelerator programs which directly connect women with investors.
"Investors tend to look less favourably at women founders. They don’t feel like women founders can lead a start-up to grow. Women need to work harder to convince investors to invest in them.”
Information sharing helps people respond to shared challenges
The impact of COVID-19 has made the challenges women face in Vietnam’s start-up sector even clearer. Hien Tu has observed that investors have been even more cautious than in the past, and that some emerging women-led start-ups have had to stop operating before they have had a chance to grow. WISE has focused efforts on bringing together start-up founders to discuss how they are navigating the pandemic, as well as providing training and mentorship sessions.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Hien Tu remains optimistic about the prospects for Vietnam’s broader start-up ecosystem. In recent years the government has implemented policies to support startups and Vietnam has been recognised as an attractive destination for international investment. Vietnam’s economy has weathered the pandemic relatively well to-date, and small and medium-sized enterprises have demonstrated their flexibility in responding effectively to the changing circumstances.
Networking opportunities are critical at a National, Regional and Global level
Although WISE is currently focused on building a community of women founders in Vietnam, Hien Tu recognises that there are a range of opportunities to collaborate across the region and internationally. WISE already works closely with the Australian Embassy in Hanoi on a range of projects and has begun to build links with other initiatives such as SHE Investments in Cambodia. Currently, however, collaboration across the region is ad hoc. To add more value in the long term, WISE is keen to build a network across Southeast Asia to link activities supporting women-led start-ups.
Hien Tu is CEO, WISE
This case study is drawn from the Empowering Women Innovation Leaders in Australia and South East Asia: A regional blueprint by Asialink Business in collaboration with Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. To download a copy of the report, click here.