With eyes on Southeast Asia, AppWorks’ new fund is its biggest yet

Jamie Lin has arguably been the face of Taiwan’s fledgling startup industry for a decade, ever since the serial tech entrepreneur set up AppWorks, an accelerator program that later expanded to making investments.

But Lin has been making big changes this year.

“I’m 40 now, so I feel that I’m getting to the point I’m a little bit too old to be the face,” he says, echoing the word I used in my question. I get the feeling that he’d be too modest to call himself the figurehead for the local scene. “Going forward, I wish we can decentralize that. We can have more founders who can be the face of the startup ecosystem and tell the Taiwan story,” Lin adds.

Jame Lin / Photo credit: AppWorks

And so earlier this year, the founder stepped back from daily operations of AppWorks. There was another factor: Taiwan Mobile, the island’s largest telecommunications firm, hired him as president in a bid to make its leadership more youthful in the run-up to launching its 5G network.

“Even if I didn’t join Taiwan Mobile as the president, I was already thinking I should pass down the torch,” he says. “I’ve served my purpose.”

Lin’s life is still tied closely to AppWorks, especially after last week’s announcement that Taiwan Mobile has invested US$20 million into the VC’s newest fund. AppWorks Fund III holds over US$100 million in its kitty.

Still mentoring

Now serving as AppWorks’ chairman and partner in addition to the Taiwan Mobile role, Lin says the startup nurturing program and venture capital firm will still run independently despite what he calls the “significant” injection of cash by Taiwan Mobile. He doesn’t want AppWorks to turn into a “vertical accelerator that serves only the purpose of the telecoms’ needs.” As Lin puts it, “Oftentimes, these endeavors have a sustainability issue in the longer term.”

Yet he also doesn’t want AppWorks to become something like SoftBank, which many observers say chases large returns with risky bets – ones that have backfired spectacularly, like WeWork.

He foresees a more reasonable third path, one that’s “quite different” from most telco-backed VCs, in which Taiwan Mobile has some “synergies” with a few of the graduated or invested startups each year, but is not dictated to in terms of the startups it opts to back.

Since Taiwan Mobile runs the island’s largest ecommerce site, the potential convergence of interests and startup-telco collaborations are wider than just telecoms-related technology.

Some AppWorks facts and stats:

• 30 to 35 startups every six months go into its accelerator program
• 10 to 15 investment deals per year
• US$170 million total under management
• US$3.8 billion total valuation of all its investees
• Typically injects from US$200,000 to US$10 million per deal
• Focuses on Taiwanese plus Southeast Asian startups
• Investees include Carousell, ShopBack, Lalamove, Dapper Labs (CryptoKitties maker), Eztable, KKday

Big bet on Southeast Asia

Bigger checks