MoMo, Vietnam’s e-payment company, has acquired all intellectual property rights of Pique (formerly NextSmarty), a Vietnamese artificial intelligence (Al) solutions provider, to realize its AI-First strategy. 

Under the deal, MoMo hired Pique leading data science and engineering team, including Pique’s founder Trinh Xuan Tuan.

This transaction will ensure MoMo's investment in innovating and optimizing the experience of its 25 million registered users, supporting tens of thousands of partners, and promoting the digital transformation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). 

MoMo will recruit more Al personnel in the incoming time. Photo: MoMo

Nguyen Manh Tuong, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Co-CEO of MoMo eWallet said: “Pique's direction and the AI solutions it develops are in line with our long-term strategy.”

“We expect Pique's talented team to support us in its ongoing transformation to an AI-first company and significantly optimize customer experience, towards the goal of "Happy Users", which MoMo persistently follows for the last 10 years," Tuong said.

The Pique deal gives MoMo additional tools to better understand the diversified needs of customers - thereby providing personalized products and services based on individual user's needs. The company expected to develop its Super App based on a strong AI technology created by a team of talented Vietnamese engineers that will best support SMEs for their digital transformation.

Eddie Thai, Co-Founder of 500 Startups Vietnam said fintech in Vietnam is still in the "opening innings" and has a lot of room to develop. With the support of AI technology and talented engineers, fintech businesses will have great opportunities to do well in Vietnam and beyond. 

“After meeting MoMo's leadership team, I believe that MoMo would provide great support for the Pique team to achieve their ambitions,” Eddie said.

This is the first acquisition of the MoMo Innovation Ventures initiative, which was launched early this year. It continues to look for potential and ambitious technology startups to join the company in its journey to win customers’ hearts.

Established in 2017, Pique successfully raised funds from 500 Startups Vietnam (the US), GS SHOP (South Korea), and angel investor Tina Ju, who was an early investor in Alibaba and Baidu (China) in 2019.