Coffee Chat: Demystifying Taiwan Startup Scene (Live Blog)

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our original speaker, Le Hong Minh is unable to attend the conference. But we’re fortunate and honored to have  Jamie Lin, founding partner of appWorks Ventures to speak on the Taiwanese startup scene.

#10:35: Jamie: On building appWorks, Jamie had this in mind: what kind of resource would I want my VCs to bring to the table?

#10:38: Jamie: appWorks has both incubator and accelerator programs. During each batch they will incubate for six months, and then do business development for them. They will then link them up with suitable investors. Think of them as early stage investors. They see themselves as VC built for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

#10:40: Willis: What are the interesting startups in Taiwan?

#10:41: Jamie: Gamesofa is one, and was generating US$30 million per year.

#10:43 Willis: Who are the more popular investors in Taiwan?

For the past ten years, the VC industry is not growing much. We have around 120 GPs, 200 LPs in Taiwan.

#10:44: Willis: Biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs in Taiwan

#10:45: Jamie: The government. The people are lamenting that they should be more like Singapore. For instance, it is very difficult in Taiwanese corporate structure to give shared equity.

#10:46: Jamie: Second problem is that there is no third party online payment service like PayPal.

#10:47: Jamie: Third problem is Wimax adoption VS 4G LTE.

#10:50: Willis: What are the possible trends to ride on in Taiwan?

#10:51: Jamie: Smartphone penetration. Taiwan has around 50 percent smartphone adoption rate. And the ratio of the number of iOS devices to Androids is 1:3.