Forty years later Boston-based IDG is not only taking in $2.4 billion in annual revenues from such titles as Computerworld and PC World, it’s also setting up Vietnam’s first technology-focused venture capital fund. McGovern traveled to Hanoi in March to trumpet the launch of IDG Ventures Vietnam, which plans to invest in 35 to 40 start-ups over the next five years. IDG’s San Franciscobased investment company, IDG Ventures, is putting up $100 million, which McGovern hopes to supplement with $20 million from Vietnamese-American entrepreneurs. Initial investments are expected to close within a couple of months. “The natural entrepreneurial instinct is there,” declares McGovern, the 66-year-old chairman and 65 percent owner of privately held IDG. The company got permission from the Vietnamese government this year to own as much as 50 percent of joint ventures with local publishers. In March, McGovern announced that IDG would spend $20 million to introduce six tech-oriented publications, bringing the company’s total in Vietnam to nine.
“The stereotype of communism -- centrally governed, top-down control -- just doesn’t apply” in Vietnam, observes McGovern, who has overseen $600 million of IDG Ventures’ investments in 180 companies worldwide since 1992. He hopes Vietnam will prove as rewarding as China, where IDG created the country’s first international venture capital firm in 1993. That fund has invested $250 million in 120 companies and is reporting an internal rate of return of 55 percent.
