Potential immense for energy landscape

Potential immense for energy landscape

German group Picus Capital, an early-stage technology investment firm, is seeking investment opportunities in Vietnamese tech startups. Senior vice president Abhijay Thacker spoke with VIR’s Thanh Van about the fund’s interest in local startups, especially in the energy sector.

In early March, Vietnamese rooftop solar provider SmartSolar raised $1.85 million in a seed funding round, co-led by Picus Capital and 2degrees, and with participation from Iterative. Could you shed light on the firm’s latest investment in Vietnam?

Abhijay Thacker

We see a strong demand side/bottom-up pull from Vietnam’s massively growing energy market due to overlapping trends of rising GDP/economy growth. There is an increasing energy consumption due to energy intensiveness of manufacturing intensive economies.

Another factor is rising temperatures in already hot climates, driving air conditioner penetration. In Vietnam alone, two million air conditioners are sold annually. Vietnam also boasts favourable economics for electric vehicles, especially two and three-wheelers, which will further electrify the overall energy demand mix away from fossil fuels.

This is driving the supply side of energy tech startups such as SmartSolar to step in to fill the gap with clean, inexpensive energy - we are confident that more risk capital as well as developmental finance capital and green bonds will flow into Vietnam to support such entrepreneurs.

How do you see Vietnamese companies transforming the energy landscape with innovation and tech?

Having seen the journey of rooftop solar companies like Enpal in Germany and Niko in Mexico, we see immense potential in formalising, upskilling, and applying global best practices to the currently highly unorganised and fragmented installer market - over 240 registered rooftop solar systems in Vietnam alone, and approximately 2,000 across Asia-Pacific.

This will generate employment opportunities nationwide, as well as reduce blackouts, increase industrial productivity, and improve national energy security, all while decarbonising the grid.

Moreover, we believe in the technological vision of a fully integrated energy system in every household and small and medium-sized enterprises, with rooftop solar, bidirectional smart metres, electric vehicle charging, and home batteries, managing behind the metre consumption as well as interfacing ahead of metre via virtual power plants and grid balancing activities.

We look forward to working with SmartSolar and the next generation of energy entrepreneurs building such innovative solutions, to drive a comprehensive decarbonised future.

What is Picus Capital’s plan to increase investments in Vietnamese companies in 2025?

Our early investments in fintech firm Aspire and HR management platform OmniHR have demonstrated the limitless potential of Southeast Asia - we believe it will be a global powerhouse, and companies that can operate in multiple geographies in this region will be well positioned to capture these deepening revenue pools.

Particularly when it comes to Vietnam, given the macro tailwinds of GDP growth, population growth, and rising technological adoption we are quite optimistic - another one of our early investments in Southeast Asia was POC Pharma, which is now also present in Vietnam, among other Southeast Asia and African markets.

Since then, we have also led SmartSolar’s seed funding, and continue to be keen to partner with leading entrepreneurs who bring digitalisation and modernisation to everyday problems right from their first round, followed by continuous double downs in future growth financings, to be a long-term partner to our portfolio companies.

VIR