Local innovation academy receives investment from Sweef Capital

Sweef Capital announced on May 7 that it had invested in Vietnamese multidisciplinary innovation academy the TEKY Alpha JSC (TEKY). The amount of funding was not disclosed. This also marks Sweef Capital’s first investment in its Southeast Asia Women’s Economic Empowerment Fund (SWEEF).

The investment will support the expansion of TEKY’s educational services in Vietnam’s public school system and after-school programs for children aged five to 18 years. “I’m excited about our expansion plan to open more STEAM centers across the country in the next two years and the prospects of a partnership with public schools to integrate the STEAM curriculum and increase accessibility,” said Ms. Dao Lan Huong, Founder and Chairwoman of TEKY.

Ms. Jennifer Buckley, Founder and Managing Director of Sweef Capital, said they were “beyond excited” about the milestone in Sweef Capital’s journey. “We see this investment as contributing great foundational skills to children, some of whom currently have limited exposure to STEAM,” she said. “We share Ms. Huong’s vision of helping more young girls see what’s possible and take up education and pursue professional careers in STEAM. We look forward to building on this partnership with TEKY and working with them to demonstrate value creation opportunities linked with women’s economic empowerment.”

SWEEF’s investment is also expected to support the expansion of TEKY’s network of academies, furthering the development of its digital platform and the integration of a STEAM curriculum in public schools. This will enable broader reach and provide more students with an avenue to improve their critical thinking and acquire marketable employment skills and foundational capabilities for broader educational achievement.

Ms. Buckley also acknowledged Sweef Capital’s partners, including Pædagogernes Pension (PBU), UN ESCAP, the Emerging Market Impact Investment Fund (EMIIF), and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for their contributions.

Mr. Sune Schackenfeldt, CEO of PBU, said their investment in SWEEF has a clear link to their strategy for responsible investment and spoke directly to their members’ interests. “Many of our members are educators and this first investment in TEKY provides strong alignment with the issues affecting them,” said Mr. Schackenfeldt. “Our partnership with Sweef Capital in these investments brings PBU’s commitment to empowering women and strengthening gender equality into our investment profile while also enabling the delivery of our targeted return thresholds for the long-term retirement savings of our members.”

According to the International Labor Organization, 137 million workers, or one-fifth of the regional population, in Southeast Asia will lose their jobs because of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) in the next two decades. Workers around the world are also likely to need to switch jobs and acquire new skills and by 2030, with many of the new jobs created by technology that won’t have existed before. “Vietnamese education must keep pace with these major shifts so that the future workforce can close the capacity gap at the regional and global level and seize opportunities from the 4.0 era,” Ms. Huong said.