Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese logistics application service provider Abivinhas beaten rivals from 40 countries to win the Start-up World Cup 2019.

The company were crowned champions on May 17 in San Francisco, the UnitedStates, and won 1 million USD worth of future investment into the firm.

Abivin topped Vietnam’s start-up and innovation contest Techfest Vietnam 2018and was nominated by the Ministry of Science and Technology to take part in thestart-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 theUS-based firm Fenox Ventures, luring the participation of Silicon investors andworldwide start-up companies. The contest is the final of 40 countries’start-up winners.

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

After four years of operation with its product Abivin vRoute – the applicationthat 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 percent oflabour and fuel costs – Abivin has proved Vietnamese start-up businesses arecapable of producing high-quality Vietnamese outputs for the internationalmarket.

Abivin was trained and fostered by the Vietnam-Finland Innovation PartnershipProgramme – Phase 2 (IPP2), which is run by the Ministry of Science andTechnology.

The Hanoi-based business appeared in domestic competitions like Shark Tank Vietnamand Techfest Vietnam 2018 and were invited to compete in international contestssuch as Rice Bowl Start-up Awards and Start-up World Cup 2019.

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

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

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

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

“Especially, the support of the Government, the Ministry of Science andTechnology and specialists helped Abivin connect to both domestic andinternational start-up communities to improve its business operation,” Longsaid.

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

Abivin plans to expand its market in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City when seekingopportunities in Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. - VNA