Cassie Nguyen, chief operation officer of Abivin, receives the award when Abivin were crowned winners of the Start-up World Cup 2019 in San Francisco, United States on Friday. — Photo Techfest Vietnam

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese logistics application service provider Abivin beat rivals from 40 countries to win the Start-up World Cup 2019 on Friday (local time) in the United States.

The company were crowned champions in San Francisco and won US$1 million worth of future investment into the firm.

Abivin topped Việt Nam’s start-up and innovation contest Techfest Vietnam 2018 and was nominated by the Ministry of Science and Technology to take part in the start-up world cup.

The Vietnamese firms had to beat competitors from 40 countries including Japan, America, Brazil, India, China and the Republic of Korea.

Start-up World Cup is an annual global start-up contest launched by the US-based firm Fenox Ventures, luring the participation of Silicon investors and worldwide start-up companies. The contest is the final of 40 countries’ start-up winners.

“Abivin will spend the $1 million to invest in research and development (R&D) to produce artificial intelligence (AI) products for the logistics sector so that travel time is cut and costs are saved for logistics firms,” Phạm Nam Long, founder of Abivin, said.

After four years of operation with its product Abivin vRoute – the application that can project a travel route at the lowest cost for trucks in a few seconds, maximise the truck’s working capacity and help truck firms save 40 per cent of labour and fuel costs – Abivin has proved Vietnamese start-up businesses are capable of producing high-quality Vietnamese outputs for the international market.

Abivin was trained and fostered by the Việt Nam-Finland Innovation Partnership Programme – Phase 2 (IPP2), which is run by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The Hà Nội-based business appeared in domestic competitions like Shark Tank Việt Nam and Techfest Vietnam 2018 and were invited to compete in international contests such as Rice Bowl Start-up Awards and Start-up World Cup 2019.

Thanks to its improvements, Abivin has made Vietnamese start-up businesses more popular to the world and assured the quality of the Vietnamese start-up community to global investors.

There are three core factors that have helped Abivin succeed, according to Long.

At the time of rapid development of the logistics sector, Abivin found a way to use AI technology to solve problems.

The company also has devoted managers and officers from the beginning when the business had difficulties in gaining reputation, market share and customer trust.

“Especially, the support of the Government, the Ministry of Science and Technology and specialists helped Abivin connect to both domestic and international start-up communities to improve its business operation,” Long said.

Working and competing with global leading start-up firms, global investors and specialists were the opportunity needed for Abivin to grow, he added.

“Long-term vision should appear in the first place, therefore, Vietnamese start-up businesses will be able to make innovative products and become strong enough for international competition.”

Abivin plans to expand its market in Hà Nội and HCM City when seeking opportunities in Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. — VNS