Investor Profile: Touchstone Partners — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

If you are an early-stage founder in Vietnam, Touchstone Partners funding offers one of the clearest early-stage tickets in the market. Touchstone Partners is a Ho Chi Minh City venture firm founded by former VinaCapital investment professionals, writing seed-to-Series A cheques of US$200,000 to US$1 million — a range printed verbatim on its official site — for technology startups that can change lives and shape Vietnam's future.

The firm's signature diligence question is worth quoting: 'If this startup succeeds, what difference will it make to Vietnam or the world?' That framing — high impact, high returns — runs through everything from its portfolio choices to its climate programme, and it is a useful filter for founders deciding whether to pitch.

Touchstone Partners: the investment thesis

Touchstone's thesis is impact-led early-stage investing: back young technology companies solving meaningful problems, and the returns will follow. Sector coverage spans fintech, real estate, healthcare and edutech, plus value-chain efficiency technology across manufacturing and agriculture, hardware, deep tech including AI and robotics, and climate-tech. In November 2025 the firm added a dedicated Green Transition Fund of US$10 million targeting sustainable agriculture, the circular economy, waste management and new energy — making Touchstone one of the few Vietnamese VCs with a dedicated climate vehicle.

Sectors, stages and cheque size

The core fund invests at seed through Series A, with the US$200k–1M cheque range delivered via equity and convertible loans — unusually transparent for the region. Fund size is publicly stated: Fund I targeted US$50 million, reaching a first close in April 2021 with backing from Pavilion Capital, Vulcan Capital and other institutions and family offices. The US$10 million Green Transition Fund followed in late 2025. That puts Touchstone in the mid-sized, focused bracket: big enough to lead, small enough to stay hands-on.

Notable portfolio

Portfolio highlights include Prep (US$7 million Series A), Selex Motors (an electric-bike business with a UNDP carbon-credit project), Eureka Robotics (US$10.5 million Series A) and Stride — where Touchstone co-led a US$2 million seed, followed into a US$15 million Series B in 2026, and partially exited at roughly 7.25x, a proof point for the returns side of its thesis. Other names include Medigo, Quqo, Alterno (sand batteries), Happynest (US$720k Touchstone-led seed) and ON (US$1.1 million Touchstone-led seed). The firm is led by managing partner Khanh Tran and general partner Ngo Thuy Ngoc Tu (Tu Ngo).

Programs and perks

Touchstone's standout programme is the Net Zero Challenge, an annual climate competition co-organised with the Temasek Foundation since 2023 that has drawn more than 1,600 applications across three editions — for climate startups, this is effectively a public entry lane to the firm. It also runs AIS4EE, Vietnam's first energy-efficiency accelerator, and a Coffee Chat Series of founder meet-ups running since February 2023. No startup-credits programme was found.

How to apply for funding

The real route is direct: email [email protected] (the firm's official contact address) or use the contact form on touchstone.vc. There is no public application portal. Climate founders should strongly consider the Net Zero Challenge as the highest-visibility route in, since winners are already on the investment team's radar.