Raising 100 billion VND from Shark Thuy on Shark Tank Vietnam, capturing the Nga Sau Phu Dong intersection from Phuc Long to face Starbucks, Soya Garden used to be an icon in the F&B market, with the ambition for young people to start saying “Let’s go Soya” just like “Let’s go for coffee” or “Let’s go for milk tea”.
The rapid expansion challenged both Highlands Coffee and The Coffee House, but was hindered when Covid-19 hit. After closing many branches, in 2020, Founder Soya Garden Hoang Anh Tuan officially left the company.
By the end of 2022, Soya Garden maintained its last location at 117 O Cho Dua. In its final efforts, the company opened the Hàng Thùng location at the end of May 2023. However, just 5 months later, that location was transformed into a Healthy Food store called Kalla House.
The newly opened Soya Garden location, specializing in take-away items, has turned into a food store. Photo: Bao Bao.
The longest-standing location, the store at O Cho Dua, also recently became a Bingxue ice cream stand.
An ice cream store Bingxue is gradually forming in the old Soya Garden location. Photo: Bao Bao.
The official Soya Garden Fanpage has more than 75,000 likes and has stopped updating since July 2023. The Soyagarden.com website is also inaccessible.
On the National Business Registration Portal, Soya Garden Joint Stock Company is reported to be no longer operating at the registered address.
Soya Garden was established in 2015. The two founders, Anh Tuan and Thu Thuy, successfully raised capital on the first season of Shark Tank Vietnam in 2017, when they owned 2 stores. In that round of capital raising, Soya Garden successfully raised 15 billion VND from Shark Thuy, in which 4 billion VND exchanged for a 45% stake, and the rest were corporate bonds with the condition of recovering capital within 3 years.
In reality, Shark Thuy later poured in 20 billion VND, and increased it to 100 billion VND a year later. With a total of 100 billion VND invested, Soya Garden is the startup that has received the most investment on Shark Tank Vietnam with 6 seasons.
After Shark Thuy poured in 20 billion VND, the stake held by Founder Hoang Anh Tuan was reduced to 9.54%. After the company increased its charter capital to 100 billion VND due to heavy investment from the sharks, the stake of Hoang Anh Tuan is not disclosed.
In 2020, Hoang Anh Tuan left Soya Garden. In 2021, Soya Garden closed its flagship store in Ho Chi Minh City, and withdrew from the southern market. Currently, the company has no operating stores.
