Skype co-founder invests in Vietnamese Startup Loship

Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn has invested in Vietnam’s fast-growing one-hour-delivery startup, Loship, the company announced. Tallinn has participated through his investment vehicle MetaPlanet Holdings. This capital injection marks Loship as the first portfolio company of MetaPlanet in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the world’s next tech hubs.

The media statement stated that the Vietnamese startup’s scalability, customer-driven mentality, and strong market position attracted the Skype co-founder to make his first investment in Southeast Asia. Jaan learned about Loship through an introduction from Vinnie Lauria, Founding Partner of Golden Gate Ventures.

Golden Gate Ventures has been a long-time supporter and investor of Lozi and Loship since its seed financing round in 2015. Having seen its tremendous growth, Vinnie championed Loship as a prime investment. “It didn’t take me very long to realize Loship was on to something,” said Jann Tallinn. “MetaPlanet is planning to pay more attention to the rapidly growing economies in Southeast Asia. So I’m delighted to be off to a strong start in Vietnam by adding Loship as our first portfolio company there.”

Tallinn’s investment in Loship puts him on a list of global tech leaders betting on Vietnamese tech startups, which has seen resilience and growth amidst the Covid-19 backdrop. Loship, in this light, is poised to become a prominent tech figure for any seasoned investor looking at Vietnam, affirmed the Loship CEO Trung Hoang Nguyen. “MetaPlanet’s investment will help us build a much stronger image of Loship as a National Startup Hero. The competition will be much steeper in the long term, and we hope to pick up deep tech insights from Jaan Tallinn that can be applied to the Vietnam market,” he further opined.

The latest fundraising, which is part of the startup’s Series C round, comes just four months after its undisclosed bridge round led by Vulpes Investment Management. The new funding would fuel Loship’s path to becoming Vietnam’s leading one-hour-delivery e-commerce platform. “We already have a winning playbook, and we look to expand it to more markets. Secondly, we know what we want to do with our product, and there are just 1% of things that have been done. So, a huge portion of the funding will be poured into upgrading our app and increasing our Tech capability. Also, we will ramp up marketing strategies to strengthen our foothold in the existing markets,” stated the CEO.

Founded in 2017, Loship traces its roots back to Lozi, a review app allowing users to find food, beverage, and coffee shops, before transitioning into a one-hour-delivery services platform. Loship had earlier closed its Series A and B rounds from several investors, including South Korea’s Smilegate Investment, Hana Financial Group, DTNI, Golden Gate Ventures, before announcing its Vulpes Investment Management-led bridge round in October 2020. The round was joined by DAAL Ventures and Wealth Well (Saudi Arabia-based VC Firms), Eucagi Ventures (Nigerian VC Firm), KI Group, & Vice President of Starbucks.