See how TAIRA 2019 (Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator) bridges the gap between corporates and startups in Southern Taiwan

As far as contemporary history is concerned, Taiwan has emerged to become one of the global leaders in computer hardware manufacturing, pioneering feats in the international tech spectrum by being home to tech giants, Asus and Acer, among many others.

Recently, however, we have seen a paradigm shift in terms of how Taiwan wants to shape its digital future — all as part of the country’s intention to become a global innovation hub. We now see government and non-government efforts in tech put a shared focus between hardware and software development.

Consequently, we’ve witnessed a growth in Taiwan’s startup culture, resulting in two particular areas steadily rising: AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Robotics capabilities.

In 2017, Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) and StarFab Accelerator — two of Taiwan’s leaders in modern tech — came together to come up with an initiative that supports and builds platforms for corporate-startup matchmaking and help startups secure funding. The initiative was prompted because both institutions saw a great potential in bridging the gap between corporations and startups.

The emergence of TAIRA (Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator) Programme

By 2018, this initiative led to creating TAIRA (Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator), an accelerator programme designed to fast track startups working on AI and robotics solutions.

The programme takes place annually at the Southern Taiwan Science Park, a space that encourages innovation and the cultivation of AI and Robotics related talents.

TAIRA supports startups through equity-free funding, product development resources, and early engagement with possible enterprise clients. The programme seeks to facilitate partnerships and collaborations between startups and big-time corporations to combine domain expertise and innovative tech solutions.

In 2019, TAIRA seeks to expand larger with StarFab’s commitment to funnel more resources to enrich their network of international accelerators and venture capitalists, and ultimately, to embolden Taiwan’s startup ecosystem further.

They’ve added test beds for corporate collaborations, technical platforms, and more funds to further equip and expose AI and Robotics startups with business and fundraising opportunities — pretty much all the tools necessary for market expansion, increasing market shares, and more client acquisition.

Corporate innovation: a marketplace of ideas

 

In order to better examine the positions and preferences of the corporates who are seeking out partnerships from the pool of startups, e27 spoke with three of StarFab’s corporate partners to learn more about their thoughts on tech innovation.

• United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) Smart Manufacturing Division

UMC (NYSE: UMC, TWSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that provides advanced IC production for applications spanning every major sector of the electronics industry.

One of the problems that smart manufacturing division faces is that more and more customers need variety custom products with less amount, so the operation process will be different from traditional ways. They need innovation transformations of cloud computing and machine managements in factories. With big data applications from startups, they are able to analyze more information and improve production capacity.

The programme, therefore, does not only help both parties on each side of the spectrum achieve meaningful, output-based partnerships, but also help create a marketplace of ideas in which both parties can establish a healthy exchange of learnings and insights.

• King’s Town Bank

King’s Town Bank Co., Ltd. provides various personal and corporate banking products and services in Taiwan. The company accepts deposits and virtual accounts, and provides loans and international financing services, among many others.

King’s Town Bank is keen on pursuing new technologies through TAIRA and give startups opportunities to cooperate with them while at the same time, help those startups achieve better successes in the future.

StarFab has helped them bridge startups together to visit their bank and more than that, form effective ways of connecting corporates to those startups.

• Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC)

KRTC, which is responsible for constructing and operating Kaohsiung Rapid Transit System in Taiwan, joins TAIRA in 2019. The rapid transit system is more than just traffic transport for KRTC. It not only brings convenient transportation to people, but is also the source of shaping a modernised urban pattern and is the driving force for a better lifestyle.

Monitoring passenger density, identifying elderly passengers or passengers with disabilities, and real-time behavior analysis and notification are the challenges they would like to be solved this year. Through the co-creation with startups in TAIRA, they expect to contribute to the promotion of high-quality public transport and the development of Kaohsiung City.

Why be part of TAIRA 2019?

At the end of the day, TAIRA is more than just an accelerator programme. It is a holistic online-to-offline innovation platform designed to bolster global AI and Robotics startups through partnerships with local Taiwan corporations.

What the programme ultimately does is foster a culture of collaboration and co-creation. These are things that are bred better in an environment that recognises growing internal demands, advanced business understanding, and a grasp of what it’s like to scale globally — all of which are found in innately among partnerships between corporates and startups.

Calling all AI startups who are interested to work with Taiwan tech corporations and expand their reach to the Taiwan market, TAIRA 2019 will open startup applications until June 30. For more information, check out the TAIRA website at http://www.tairax.com.tw/index.aspx

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Feedloop provides the building blocks for marketers to create interactive marketing campaigns such as survey, quizzes and interactive storytelling

Feedloop, a SaaS-based interactive content marketing platform in Indonesia, announced today that it has secured an undisclosed amount of seed investment from early-stage VC fund East Ventures and several unnamed angel investors.

The startup will use the money to build the next-generation interactive content experience to help companies in their brand activation initiatives.

Founded in late 2018, Feedloop aims to disrupt the way brands connect with its customers, especially to appeal to Millenials and Generation Z, for whom traditional one-directional marketing is no longer effective. Feedloop provides the building blocks for marketers to create interactive marketing campaigns such as survey, quizzes and interactive storytelling that drives high user engagements.

Exclusive: Indonesia’s Automo closes seed round; in talks for fresh funding

“This generation of consumers expect a two-way dialogue with their brands, simply delivering message is not enough,” said Ahmad Rizqi Meydiarso, Co-founder and CEO of Feedloop, who also previously co-founded Kata.ai, a conversational AI company in Indonesia. “Showing ads to promote your product or brand is no longer working. You have to invest in building contents that spark dialogue and give value to your audience.”

Within just less than six months of operation, Feedloop had executed pilot projects with multiple brands and digital marketing agencies to test the potential use cases of such technologies. The two campaign examples are for social media engagement and talent acquisition funnel management.

For social media engagement, Feedloop assisted Liga1 (highest professional football division of the Indonesian football league system) and its agency Panenmaya to build a brand engagement campaign on Instagram. Users filled in the survey to find out which Liga1 players were most alike to them and then posted the result on their personal Instagram story. This campaign attracted 20,000 unique user’s posts in just one single day, totaling over 30,000 posts in two consecutive days.

For talent acquisition funnel management, Feedloop assisted Paragon (one of Indonesia’s largest cosmetic producers owning brands of Wardah, Make Over, Emina, IX, dan Putri) in creating interactive campaign builder to improve its talent acquisition funnel. Rather than just clicking through job application pages, applicants’ journey started from checking whether their personality suited to the related position they applied for. For employers, this helps to map suitability of the candidates prior to engaging with them directly.

“By providing the much-needed tools to build immersive interactive experience, Feedloop can dramatically reduce the time-to-market of a creative campaign while reducing the cost if compared to custom vendor-built campaigns,” claimed Ronaldi Kurniawan, Co-founder and CTO of Feedloop. “Thus, we are relieving marketers burden to let them focus on the most important thing: the creative process. We also give them the ability to continuously improve through the feedback loop made possible through our analytics system.”

Feedloop also collaborates with Narasi.tv (an online media platform providing video content with journalistic approach) to create interactive digital media experience that allows viewers of the programme to provide real-time feedback.

According to PwC, Indonesia’s digital media spending is among the fastest growing in the world, with PQ Media estimating its ads spending at USD$12 billion. Despite the large spend, key challenges lie in digital skill or resource gaps for content marketing: how could marketers design a great overall customer experience to improve brand engagement, thus results in higher marketing ROI. Feedloop believes that interactive digital content is the solution.

Melisa Irene, Partner of East Ventures, said: “We believe that with more than 150 million Indonesian consumers already online, personalisation will be key strategy for brands and companies to reach customers more effectively. Feedloop team has the right mindset as they bring product- based approach to help companies innovate on personalized brand experience in multiple use cases.

East Ventures has invested in hundreds of companies in Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Its portfolio companies include Tokopedia, Traveloka, Mercari, Disdus (acquired by Groupon), Kudo (acquired by Grab), TechInAsia, Omise, IDNTimes, Ruangguru, Jurnal, Cermati, MokaPOS, ShopBack, EVHive, Pasar Polis and Loket (acquired by Gojek).

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The Indonesia-based venture capital Alpha JWC Ventures receives investment from the Japanese IT company for its second fund

Japan-based information technology solutions NS Solutions Corporations announced its investment in the second fund of Indonesia’s venture capital firm Alpha JWC Ventures.

The company stated that the objective of the investment is to “search for promising technology companies in the emerging Southeast Asian market, mainly in Indonesia”.

In its joint statement, NC Solutions also remarked that the partnership marks the firm’s first investment in Southeast Asian venture capital, in hope to take part in accelerating the region’s digital economy growth.

“Alpha JWC is one of the region’s most active VCs with investment in 23 startups in their first fund alone. We support their approach in managing their portfolio where they provide hands-on support to help the startups grow fast and right,” said Toshiyuki Kajiwara, Director of Global Business Development & Management Department at NS Solutions.

The terms of the partnership include NS Solutions introducing Alpha JWC Ventures’ current and upcoming portfolio companies to its local Japanese customers, which will contribute to the startups’ business development. At the same time, NS Solutions will share its group’s technology and know-how to the startups.

NS Solutions is a Tokyo-based information technology company founded by Nippon Steel in 1980. It was later merged with Sumitomo Metal Corp and got an update with the offering of services such as system integration, cloud computing, and other corporate-intended technology solutions.

Also Read: East Ventures backs Indonesia’s interactive content marketing startup Feedloop

With subsidiaries in Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, the company has experience in Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem. NS Solutions made an investment into an Indonesian tech company that provides network management to software training PT Sakura System Solutions in 2015.

Alpha JWC Ventures was established in Indonesia in 2015, led by partners who have been investing in Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem since 2010. The firm currently manages two funds of US$50 million and US$100 million, with 28 active portfolio companies in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It has two exits — co-working space Spacemob (acquired by workspace giant WeWork), and business news platform DealStreetAsia (acquired by Financial Times of Nikkei Group).

“We are excited to have NS Solutions on board with our mission to further nurture Southeast Asia’s leading tech companies,” said Alpha JWC Ventures’ Co-Founder and Managing Partner Chandra Tjan.
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How do you avoid being part of that 90 per cent of startups that failed?

There’s always a dream behind every startup; loaded with ambitions, desires, and irreplaceable persistence. So – why do startups fail? If entrepreneurs know what they want and are on a mission with total conviction, what stops them from achieving it all?

Are bad ideas the reason that startups fail? No – Google was also considered a bad startup idea when it was proposed. But then, it’s not always the idea that costs your business, sometimes it’s for a  few other reasons, including the A-team.

The personal readiness for the role

Most early entrants into the startup world may find it exhausting. There are cases where entrepreneurs take out equity on their own home. Also, putting themselves and their family members in continuous debt is not new – we often hear of similar cases in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Plunging into a business may leave you in a position where it gets tricky to circumvent such problems.  It is critical you stay prepared. You will be under pressure to balance your emotions as you pursue your startup dream; to move fast in business and still keep good mental and physical health, as well as develop a compassionate mindset.

Ask yourself if you are ready to invest ‘all-in’ of yourself in this new role? Consider consulting your friends, family and the closed ones. Maybe it is just the right time for you and the right version of you as you decide to begin this entrepreneurial (mis)adventure.

What does the market research say?

You have successfully launched a business, but have you researched about the market demand for the product or services you offer? It would be important to conduct such surveys as they help gauge whether your idea will turn out to be a successful one. Also, it helps you to identify existing problems that your potential users are facing and gives a clearer idea of what the solution should look like.

It’s difficult to be fully sure that you are the first one to roll out such offerings as there may be some similar business offerings. Reach out to them or at least read about them to identify whether they have succeeded? If no, why did they fail? You will need answers to these questions and find out a way to differentiate yourself in the market.

It all boils down to how you execute the offerings once the market research is done. Some of the businesses that fail to launch their MVP can attribute it to their lack of execution discipline, as well as a lack of brand to lean on. Some businesses fail because they go all out without conducting adequate market research and they try to peddle products that are not required at all. Sometimes the product may evolve as an experience but then it may also limit the number of re-purchases.

Also Read: How Go-Jek evolved from a startup to a tech unicorn in less than 10 years

But then, what if your market research fails? It may happen that this will have you pushing your products towards the incorrect target market. What if your data on the market size is wrong? The product positioning may cause your business to veer off in the wrong direction even before it is launched.

Keep the answers of these three questions ready before you are ready to launch:

1. Are you clear about your target market and its specific problem?
2. Is your business able to provide the best possible solution to that problem?
3. What is the size of your target market? Is it well-defined? And most of all, is it big enough to sustain your new business?

Inablility to focus – in a single direction

A new business will demand a lot of things from your end, but then sometimes you will need to pause and introspect. You may be multitasking but then you will have to ask if it actually moves the needle. If it doesn’t, stop wasting your efforts.

Most startups will fail due to routine stuff that hampers the growth:

• Networking –. Sure, business partnerships can turn profitable with the right contacts but it is recommended to network wisely so you do not waste time.
• Don’t be in a hurry to form a board of advisors once you get funding
• Stop multiple partnership businesses if you don’t see any revenue in a predetermined time.
• You should not be channelizing your own and your team’s effort on PR and social media unless you are highly confident that you have the right product for your target customer market.

Now, you only have two important things to focus on if you really want to succeed. There is no third way out.

1. Users

Understanding where they come from and what they seek from your offerings is an important aspect of success. User engagement is equally important because after acquiring them, that’s how you will be able to engage them for a longer time and extend the Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV).

2. Product

This is the heart of your startup –  always endeavour to improve product offerings. Talk to users, address their issues and enhance their experience by altering your product accordingly. If you really want your startup to be a successful one, you’ll be spending the majority of your time in improving your product.

Optimistic entrepreneurs tend to function as a one-person team

Y-Combinator’s co-founder Paul Graham points three important things that drive a successful startup.

1. A team of genuinely dedicated people;
2. Offering precisely what your target customers want;
3. Reducing outflow of cash as much as possible

From the above-mentioned points, if you want to achieve the latter two, fix the first one. Good people will build a significantly useful product and this will also fix your problem of unnecessary expenses. Make sure you create and retain your A-team for the startup as they will be the ones leading the attack from the front. The research suggests that the average solo founders may take around 3.6x longer to scale their startups no matter how focused they are on growth.

Also Read: The essentials of managing your business financials at 4 stages of its lifecycle

An ideal scenario will involve having at least one person onboard from each department – marketing, development, designing, etcetera. If you have the right team who are experts in their own work you are almost certain to provide customers with what they really need – 100x easier than you’d rather do it alone. As a team, the long hours get more bearable and you’ll have each others’ back through all thick and thin. The perils of being a one-man army are not confined to just inefficiency but could also lead to a failure in the longer run.

Conclusion:

Though 90 per cent of startups fail, some entrepreneurs striving for success may want to settle for average results. But if you truly want to be in the that 10 per cent and hit the jackpot, try to be mindful and avoid making mistakes that are common across all the startups that failed.

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Extracting massive volumes of relevant customer data will be integral in transforming the insurance industry

A cloud-based infrastructure is now the norm for most insurance companies. In 2019, seven in 10 carriers incorporated the cloud in their business operations, with increased speed, flexibility, and scalability being some of the key benefits. And this widespread cloud adoption has meant one thing – a massive volume of data.

When harnessed correctly, this data can lead to profound insights within the insurance industry, helping providers become more efficient and deliver a better customer experience. With that said, here’s the role big data plays in the insurance industry, and how to capitalize on it.

Why it’s being used in the insurance industry?

Big data has three main uses. First, it offers in-depth insights into customer needs. Analyzing data offers a deeper understanding of customer behavior, what they’re looking for with insurance policies, potential issues that may cause friction, which channels are most effective for reaching them, and so on.

In turn, insurance companies can adjust their premiums, improve customer service, and create targeted offers customers are likely to respond to. The end result is increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

Next, big data serves as a catalyst for business model innovation. It helps insurance companies optimize everything from underwriting and claims processing to fraud detection and investigation. This maximizes efficiency and allows providers to get more done with less wasted motion.

Third, it enables companies to monitor financial performance. Whether it’s tweaking pricing or tracking claims adjustment expenses, big data can be leveraged to improve decision-making and increase profit margins.

How is it being used in the insurance industry?

Risk management is a major concern for insurance companies. There are many emerging threats they must contend with and overcome in order to remain competitive and thrive long-term. Big data can be a tremendous asset for managing risk, as it can be used to ensure compliance with data storage and privacy regulations, and monitor brand reputation.

For instance, an insurance agency might use big data to ensure their practices align with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and promptly address any bad publicity on social media before it gets out of hand.

Beyond that, insurance companies can use it to perform background checks on candidates by quickly gathering data from different resources like legal databases, financial registers, and sanctions lists.

Also Read: Insurtech startup Sunday Ins reveals the secret to win the Southeast Asian insurance market

Rather than going through the arduous and time-consuming process of sifting through a mountain of resources manually, big data can produce in-depth reports within minutes.

Also note that newer technologies like web data integration tools are capable of extracting and normalizing huge volumes of data and producing highly-digestible, easy-to-read reports and visualizations. This means insurance companies spend less time preparing the data and more time putting it to use.

The use cases

To further illustrate the practical application of big data in the insurance industry, here are a few examples of how companies can capitalize on it. One is to conveniently and efficiently collect information on a person to determine a premium.

For instance, an auto insurance company might examine a person’s previous driving record and the driving safety level in their area to calculate the chances of them being involved in an accident.

Insurance companies can also use big data in fraud detection. Fraudulent claims are an ongoing problem and total at least US$80 billion per year.

With big data, insurance companies can find out how many past claims a customer has made and the chances of those claims being fraudulent. If a person has a history of false claims, an agent will be automatically notified so they can investigate the customer further.
In turn, this streamlines the process significantly, ensuring agents only spend time assessing valid threats.

Where is all of this heading?

The volume of global data being generated has increased dramatically, from 8 zettabyte in 2015 to a predicted 40 zettabyte in 2020.

This surge has created immense opportunities for insurance companies. Taking a data-driven approach allows them to create better value for customers, increase productivity, optimize their marketing strategies, and gain a competitive advantage.

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