SOFTBANK INVESTS IN VIETNAMESE SEARCH ENGINE

Posted by Joachim Bartels | Dec 20, 2010 | Japan, Search & Aggregation, Softbank, Vietnam | 0 |

Tokyo, 24^th March: Softbank and IDG Venture Vietnam have announced that the two companies have agreed to invest an undisclosed sum in a Vietnamese search engine, Socbay, which is owned and operated by Naiscorp IT Service JS Company. This investment follows on a trend of increasing interest in the Vietnamese market from some key players in Asian B2B media. Naiscorp claims that Socbay is based on unique and proprietary technologies “optimized for the Vietnamese language.” The company was founded in July 2006 following a meeting with initial investor, Pat McGovern, chairman of IDG.

Softbank has invested in key online players in Asia including Yahoo! and Alibaba.com in which Softbank was an early investor. IDG Ventures Vietnam was founded in 2004 and manages a US$100 million fund.

Sources: Vietnam Business News, Socbay press release Courtesy: Business Strategies Group www.bsgasia.com

BIIA Newsletter May 2009 Issue

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Joachim Bartels

Joachim C Bartels is a co-founder, director, head of information resources and Editor-in-Chief of BIIA. In his capacity as Editor-in-Chief he is responsible for the selection of relevant information content concerning industry insights, trends, technological developments, standards and policies impacting BIIA members in particular and the business information industry in general.

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