CyberAgent Ventures Invests $1 Million in Taiwan’s iPeen

Japanese investment firm, CyberAgent Ventures has recently invested $1 million in Taiwan’s iPeen for 20 percent stake, valuing iPeen at $5 million.

iPeen is one of the largest user generated restaurant review websites in Taiwan. The website has more than 85,000 restaurants listed on its website and attracts up to 200,000 visitors each day. iPeen recorded $1 million in revenue last year and plans to hit $3 million this year. Sky Ho, CEO of iPeen said that he targets an initial public offering (IPO) in five years time.

iPeen will use the investment to bring in more manpower to its current and new offices in Taichung and Kaohsiung. He also said that iPeen services would also be available in smartphones and tablets soon.

Without a doubt, Taiwan-based start-ups are on the rise. We recently covered EZTable (expanding to Singapore) and Ragic, which are some of the more promising start-ups from the country. I recently met up with several Taiwan-based venture capitalists (Jamie Lin from AppWorks and Volker Heistermann from Yushan Ventures ) at Beijing and they echoed the same thoughts. It is exciting time ahead for Taiwan.

I will also be attending a start-up event organized by AppWorks in May. Looking forward to it. 🙂

Via FocusTaiwan