Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – 9 August 2018 – Vynn Capital, a South-East Asia-based early-stage venture capital firm, and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) today jointly announced a strategic partnership to promote South-East Asia’s tourism sector by facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation.
Through this strategic partnership, Vynn Capital and UNWTO will collaborate to create a framework and policies to support technology startups that are addressing opportunities and challenges in the region’s tourism sector. Both parties will work together to encourage traditional industry players such as hotel groups, property groups and food companies to adopt digital strategies, as well as to encourage more investment by the private sector into technology companies. Vynn Capital will act as UNWTO’s partner on initiatives to achieve these goals, by supporting tourism entrepreneurs and traditional industry players as the tourism market embraces technology and innovation.
“The tourism sector represents a huge opportunity for South-East Asia, where we see the emergence of a strong middle class. Vynn Capital has identified tourism as a key investment space and we will continue to work with entrepreneurs and industry players to promote the region’s tourism sector. We believe technology companies that focus on the mobility of consumers, such as Indonesia’s Travelio and Carsome, who already has operations in four key countries in South-East Asia, will continue to champion the economic impact of tourism growth. We join hands with UNWTO to foster a new generation of innovative tourism companies in South-East Asia,” said Victor Chua, Founding and Managing Partner of Vynn Capital and Chairman of the Malaysia Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (MVCA).
“UNWTO is proud to partner with Vynn Capital, who will help us to create real solutions for the much-needed digital transformation of tourism. Such partnerships are key to continue generating opportunities all through tourism, and prove that venture capital has a role to play when we want to advance sustainable development,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.
According to UNWTO, international arrivals have increased in all regions since the start of 2018, continuing the strong trend of previous years. The strong growth is led by Asia and the Pacific (+8%), especially South-East Asia (+10%) and South Asia (+9%) where growth has already surpassed that of 2017 when Asia saw a 6% increase in international arrivals. This is significant, considering that Asia and the Pacific represents around 29% of international tourism receipts.
About Vynn Capital
Vynn Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on opportunities in South-East Asia. The team has experience investing across Asia, with notable past investments in companies such as Triip.me, Carsome, Hermo and others. The firm focuses on bridging the knowledge and experience gap between incumbent industry players and startups, within industries such as travel, property, food & FMCG, female economics, logistics and enablers. Vynn Capital encourages strong partnerships of corporations and families with technology companies, as well as synergy between companies in creating more value for the ecosystem.
A Partnership Built On Trust
Additionally, Aizat gave his thoughts on the link-up between Dropee and Vynn Capital, saying that it was a combination of factors that helped Dropee gain the confidence of the VC firm.
“The founding team of Dropee has a strong network and deep understanding of the supply-chain industry, and the B2B market has also started to gain more exposure and education so it’s easier to onboard even more potential customers within this space,” he said.
“To top it off, we’ve been single-handedly building our technology in-house since day one, never outsourcing our foundations to freelancers or other agencies.”
“This has allowed us to better understand the problems that our customers face then incorporate technological solutions into our product for them,” he added. “This in turn gives us the upper hand to replicate and scale the same technologies that we’ve to build into other countries with lesser friction.”
It was mentioned also that through their new partnership, Dropee would now be able to rely on a partner with an extensive network of contacts in their target space.
“First of all, Vynn Capital’s team including their partners and board members have direct and indirect investments and influence in the space that we’re focusing on,” Aizat said. “Secondly, the partners are actively contributing to our growth, and as such they’ve shared a lot of their relevant contacts and networks to assist our business, even before we decided to fundraise.”
“Most importantly, we’ve known each other even before venturing into this partnership, which is why it’s safe to say we know Vynn Capital will act in the best interest of Dropee.”
Dropee’s previous funding came during a round with undisclosed angel investors along with a grant from Cradle Fund. Their immediate plans are to introduce a product that will target larger brands, with the goal to unify the supply chain industry.