Affirma backs Vietnam recruitment business
Affirma Capital, a PE firm launched last year as a spin-out of Standard Chartered’s private equity business, has agreed to invest $34 million in Transcendental Human Resources, a Vietnam-focused online recruitment platform.
The company – also known as Sieu Viet – was established in 2014 and now runs four job portals: TimViecNhanh.com, ViecLam24H.vn, ViecTotNhat.com, and MyWork.com.vn. It claims to have referred millions of job applications to more than small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. It employs nearly 500 people in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
Sieu Viet received seed funding from Simple Tech Investment (STI), a local seed and venture capital investment firm. Phan Minh Tam – the chairman of STI, who started investing in start-ups after finding success with online advertising business 24h – serves as chairman and co-founder of Sieu Viet. STI’s website states that the company had served 500,000 enterprise customers and 6.2 million job seekers as of 2018. In addition, revenue has increased 50-fold since STI invested.
Affirma will support Sieu Viet’s expansion plans within its core segment as well as the roll-out of value-added services across the platform.
“We are witnessing the most exciting growth period in Vietnam with a 55-million strong workforce and an economy that is rapidly becoming increasingly productive and well-diversified. Additionally, the Vietnamese entrepreneurial spirit has fueled development of the private sector in terms of the number of established enterprises, which serves as a catalyst for the expanding job market,” Thuy Dropsey, an executive director at Affirma, said in a statement.
This is the private equity firm’s fifth investment in Vietnam since 2014. It has also backed children’s lifestyle platform N Kid Corporation, mobile payments business Online Mobile, agrochemicals manufacturer Loc Troi Group, and restaurant chain operator Golden Gate. These deals closed prior to the spin-out, which was announced in December 2018.
The Affirma team took most of the $1 billion in assets managed by Standard Chartered Private Equity off the bank’s balance sheet. The transaction was supported by ICG Strategic Equity, a unit of Intermediate Capital Group. Affirma was allocated $700 million for new investments. The GP has $3.6 billion in assets under management, which includes assets spun out through five secondary deals between 2013 and 2015, as well as separate account mandates.
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