Startup Failures in Vietnam

Indonesia's buy-now-pay-later champion couldn't export its model to Vietnam's credit desert.

Vietnam's app-lending crackdown killed CashWagon's core market overnight.

Validus's Vietnam SME lending bet lost to NPLs, regulatory fog, and local funding gaps.

Vietnam's regulatory vacuum killed Funding Societies' four-year lending expansion.

Vietnam's data localization laws killed Credify's open finance dream before it launched.

The Axie Infinity sidechain was hacked for 625M dollars in March 2022 in the largest crypto theft in history, carried out by North Korean Lazarus Group.

The play-to-earn NFT game with 2.8 million daily users and a $3B valuation — destroyed in one day when North Korea's Lazarus Group stole $625 million from its Ronin bridge

The play-to-earn revolution ended with a $625M North Korean heist and collapsing token rewards.

Vietnam's Operation Clean Money put FastCash executives in handcuffs.

The $625M Ethereum bridge hack attributed to North Korean state hackers — the largest crypto theft in history at the time

Axie Infinity's blockchain bridge was hacked for $625M — the largest crypto theft in history — and the play-to-earn model never recovered.

VinDAX was hacked for $500K just months after launch, exposing how listing-fee-hungry micro-exchanges cut security corners.

Play-to-earn blockchain game that employed 40,000 Filipinos before collapsing in a $625M hack and Ponzi economics.

Vietnam ClassPass clone that raised $1.8M and went bankrupt in May 2020 when COVID eliminated gym access demand and exposed its prepaid credit model as catastrophically fragile.

Vietnamese AI analytics platform priced out of its own market by global SaaS giants

Alibaba-backed e-commerce giant conceded Vietnam to Shopee and TikTok Shop

Vietnam's consumer lending fintech was shut by State Bank crackdown on unlicensed digital credit

A 14-year-old Vietnamese English learning startup that outlasted the entire VC edtech wave but could not survive competition from AI.

Vietnamese P2P consumer lender shut down by State Bank of Vietnam regulatory crackdown

Vietnam's retail AI startup overwhelmed by a conglomerate with a private AI lab

Vietnamese last-mile startup crushed between Grab and Gojek

Vietnam ecommerce pioneer backed by FPT that raised $61M before merging with Tiki in a distressed deal as Shopee and Lazada took over the market.

Vietnam book seller turned e-commerce pioneer outgunned by Shopee

Vietnam's fintech startup in a market where MoMo had 30 million users before the company launched

Vietnam fintech second wave: SBV QR (50M+), VNPay (30M+), MoMo (25M+), and ZaloPay (10M+) covered 115M+ users before the startup could achieve scale