The Taiwan AI x Robotic Accelerator (TAIRA) is set to advance the success of three of Taiwan’s rising AI startups to the global audience at CES Eureka Park 2020

Since 2012, CES has served as a global expo for more than 1,200 startups from more than 40 countries and have been funded with more than $1.5 billion. This year, CES Eureka Park 2020 will be held in Las Vegas on 7-10 January 2020, where investors and corporations are attending to fund new ideas and forge new partnerships and acquisitions. With dozens of global media coverage, CES Eureka Park is easily one of the best international platforms for new startups to showcase their best products and get worldwide recognition onward to becoming the next unicorn.

This buzz-worthy exhibition is an opportunity to be seized by many new startups, encompassing various forms of tech innovations and providing solutions to a slew of today’s problems. As such, three Taiwan-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups facilitated by Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator (TAIRA), an accelerator program for startups developing AI and robotics technologies, are taking this chance to steal the spotlight.

Healthtech and Medtech making their global mark

Big Data Mobile is a company that specialises in the commercialisation of technologies related to smart healthcare, media AI, and products. With technical cooperation among some well-known Taiwan and United States universities, the company focuses on AI technology that can accurately determine the area of vascular occlusion as a means to provide a more accurate index for cardiologists.

Around half of the 50 million people in the US and Europe alone are not aware of their arteriosclerosis index until it leads to a critical stage such as peripheral arterial disease. Screening at the hospital is one way to prevent it but it is nearly impossible during the early stage and only 10% of patients presenting typical symptoms are accurately diagnosed.

The company’s leading product, AI-Screening is a combination of portable hardware and mobile application to help measure user’s arteriosclerosis index and obtain report in just one minute. Users simply change their smartphone back case with B.D Mobile back case and install the app called “iScreening”.

“iScreening provides real-time quantitative arteriosclerosis index of the aorta in the app. Our innovation provides aorta arteriosclerosis index to small devices that allows customers to measure the index anytime and anywhere,” said CMO Joyce.

The product is developed with an A.I. interpretation of the biomedical system to accelerate the labeling of cardiovascular index, such as pulse wave velocity, blood pressure, and HRV. This helps give immediate analysis reports for doctors to provide accurate diagnosis and pharmaceutical suggestion.

Also read: TAIRA 2019 sets the stage for global AI startups to expand in Southern Taiwan

As it integrates data and algorithm calculated on the AI platform, AI Screening is also ready for trial operation to provide the best diet analysis report based on the cardiovascular index.

In the near future, B.D Mobile will develop a product to provide quantitative arteriosclerosis index that includes aorta and peripheral artery.

“B.D Mobile started from developing algorithms, signal processing, and developed our own circuits and hardware. Currently, we focus on software-side big data analysis and the establishment of AI models and data collection,” continued Joyce who also co-founded the company back in 2014.

Now with support from TAIRA, the company targets to establish a wider network next year with manufacturers and hospitals to complete more data collection and integrated supply chain.

“We plan to have customer relationship establishment, product function integration, market research, FDA certification information,” added Joyce explaining what things to expect from their participation in CES Eureka Park 2020.

Internet of Things for car owners

Another TAIRA-supported startup that will also be exhibiting in TTA Taiwan Tech Pavilion at CES Eureka Park 2020 is 3drens, a B2B Internet of Things (IoT) solution provider that builds vehicle intelligence platform by using data collection and IoT technologies to empower mobility industries.

Focusing on optimising operations, 3drens provides a comprehensive tool that can cover almost everything for a commercial vehicle business owner to maximise a vehicle’s ROI.

“3drens product Fleet Intelligence Platform is designed to provide a one-stop solution to the whole-network scheduling, commanding, and monitoring space. This is a completely data-driven IoT platform designed for commercial fleet owners including vehicle rentals, logistics, public transportation, and automakers,” said CEO Oeo Yu.

The platform is also software-based so it can be basically integrated to any hardware, and includes many useful features such as geofence, map trajectory, driver performance reports, and issue management.

“Furthermore, we provide capacity matching, distribution tracking and route optimisation for LSPs (Logistics Service Providers),” added OeO, who also came from many experiences of developing smart city projects before co-founding the company.

Founded in 2017, 3drens was the brainchild of Oeo with CTO Chungdial Lim and COO Jammy Yu, with the intention of seizing the tremendous prospect of IoT, a smart computing system that integrates any device with the internet.

Also read: Fast-track your startup growth in Southern Taiwan with TAIRA’s corporate innovation

The company then was selected by TAIRA to be fostered in its accelerator program. It was an essential boost to the company’s success as they were equipped with funding, resources, and collaborations with enterprise clients.

“In addition, Starfab (TAIRA) continuously refers us to their corporate partners, even if we already graduated from the accelerator program. We recommend startups to join StarFab which is really a quality accelerator.”

Indeed the journey doesn’t end as they are now participating again at the much anticipated CES Eureka Park 2020 to reach international markets. “We are looking for corporate partners such as 3rd party logistic corporate partners, shippers, and domestic distributors,” said OeO.

More AI startups from the Taiwan ecosystem

In the same tone, Memorence AI also expects to grow even bigger as an artificial intelligence company, especially with their participation in the CES Eureka Park 2020.

Focusing on human-machine interactive AI learning system, the company aims firstly to change the way and the experience for people who want to build AI-based visual understanding and recognition applications. Secondly, it aims to build a learning system with human-like memories to enhance the capability of AI. And thirdly, it aims to improve the production quality and operation efficiency with AI for professionals such as smart factory engineers and radiologists.

“By doing so, we assist every professionals with great experience in building their high-precision visual recognition applications and therefore make sure end-customer receives the safest and highest quality products and services,” said Founder and CEO Pai-Heng Hsiao.

Founded in 2018, Memorence AI consists of a team of technology experts on AI, software, sensor & edge device, and brain theory scientist.

Their latest creation, Memorence Suite, is an AI learning system with graphical user interface for people without AI backgrounds to easily and efficiently build their high-precision AI applications without coding. It includes advanced features such as auto-labeling, multi-class recognition, and continuously incremental learning.

“We provide AI visual learning and recognition systems for enterprise and consumer solutions. Users include smart factories, health care industries, and continue to expand applications in different fields,” explained Pai-Heng who has 10 years of experience as an AI scientist.

Throughout his experience, manual operation has been a long-time concern as it was subject to human mistakes. Memorence AI was founded to show real commitment in improving quality and efficiency for consumer daily and industry operations.

“At present, the company is in the growth stage, and we are currently accepting the training of TAIRA accelerator which is very helpful to us.” Now with CES Eureka Park 2020 is in sight, Memorence AI is well-prepped to demonstrate their AI learning platform to enterprise professionals and consumers. “We want to find potential customers and business partners, increase company awareness, and survey markets needs and feedback,” added Pai-Heng.

Like the previous two startups, the company was facilitated by TAIRA in setting up collaborations, technical platforms, and funds to be further prepped with business and fundraising opportunities, allowing the company to increase market shares and acquire more clients.

As AI startups are blooming in Taiwan’s technology ecosystem, Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) and StarFab Accelerator — two of Taiwan’s leaders in modern tech — came together to initiate a platform that would bridge the gap between AI startups and enterprise corporations in Taiwan.

The idea eventually formed TAIRA, a program to accelerate AI startups in building partnerships with top companies and support them in acquiring resources to help vitalise further Taiwan’s startup ecosystem.

As TAIRA-supported startups, Big Data Mobile, 3drens and Memorence AI have passed the CES 2020 qualification to exhibit their finest contributions in AI technology for potential investors and enterprise corporations across the globe to witness and potentially invest in. As such, Taiwan’s future is shaping up to become an important AI talent hub for the international market.

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South Korea’s ATU Partners launches e-sports-focussed growth fund – Dealstreet Asia

South Korean private equity firm ATU Partners has announced the launch of a US$17-million growth fund that will invest in e-sports space, Dealstreet Asia reported.

Said to be the first in the region to focus on the industry, the fund is backed by Kakao Games, The E&M, Woori Technology Investments, and SB Partners.

It has already acquired South Korean e-sports organisation DRX (formerly known as Kingzone Dragon X) and invested in leading US-based talent agency AZYT.

Tencent says it fired more than 60 employees this year for corruption and bribery – SCMP

Chinese internet giant Tencent said that it has fired more than 60 employees in the first three quarters of 2019 for alleged corruption and bribery, with 10 of those handed over to Chinese public security and judicial authorities, South China Morning Post reported.

Tencent said that it investigated over 40 cases in the past nine months, mainly involving misappropriation of company assets, corruption and bribery.

It has also blacklisted 16 companies involved in such misbehaviour.

Also Read: Thailand E-Sports Arena raises funding from Japan’s GameWith; to foray into Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia in 2020

Grab, Singtel form consortium for Singapore digital banking license – e27

Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab announced that it has formed a consortium to apply for a digital full bank licence in Singapore with Singtel, the communications technology group.

Grab will have a 60 per cent stake in the consortium entity while Singtel will hold a 40 per cent stake.

In a statement, it is stated that Grab and Singtel seek to contribute to the financial services sector with a differentiated offering that addresses the unmet and underserved needs of consumer and enterprise segments in Singapore.

Temasek invests in Indonesia-focussed EV Growth’s US$250M fund – e27

Singapore-headquartered venture capital firm EV Growth has announced the close of its first fund at US$250 million, exceeding the firm’s initial target of US$150 million.

The VC firm’s new Limited Partners (LPs) include several Asia-based family offices and two of Asia’s largest sovereign wealth funds, including Temasek.

EV Growth was launched in March 2018. A joint venture among East Ventures, SMDV and Yahoo! Japan Capital, the fund focusses on providing growth capital to startups in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia with an industry agnostic focus.

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Image Credit: Frank Busch on Unsplash

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According to research by the Small Business Administration, only half of the new businesses have survived during the first five years and only a third of new businesses can survive for 10 years.

On the contrary, it is reassuring, as we can conclude that if only 50 per cent of new businesses are left during the first five years, the other 50 per cent will fail in the first five years. We can also conclude that about 65 per cent of new companies do not reach the ten-year mark.

Forbes reports a single Blecker statistic based on Bloomberg‘s research, which shows that eight out of every 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months.

What are the reasons that companies do not prosper, they are given 50/50 chance of survival and given any product or service for which there is demand? Let us analyse six reasons why companies fail and some ways in which business failure can be avoided.

Six reasons why companies fail:

Leadership failure

If your management demonstrates poor management skills, your business may fail, which may be evident in many ways. You will fight as a leader if you do not have enough experience to make administrative decisions, staff supervision or lead your organisation.

Your leadership team may not agree on how the business should be managed. You and your leaders can discuss each other publicly or refute each other’s instructions. When there are problems that require strong leadership, you may be reluctant to take over and when your business is constantly moving towards failure.

• How to avoid leadership failure: Useless leadership in your business will filter and affect all aspects of your operations, from financial management to employee morale, and once productivity is interrupted. Learn the horizon, study, find a mentor, enrol in training, do so personally.
• Research: what you can do to improve your leadership skills and industry knowledge. Test other best business practices and see which ones you can apply to your business.

Also Read: Indonesian edutech startup Ruangguru confirms US$150M Series C funding round

Lack of exclusivity and value

You may have an excellent product or service for which there is a strong demand, but your business is still failing. It may have a mediocre outlook or lacks a strong value proposition. If there is a strong demand, it probably has many competitors and does not stand out from the crowd.

How to avoid the failure of a value proposition: What distinguishes your company from competitors? How to do business in a completely unique way? What are your competitors doing better than you? Develop a personalised approach or package of services that no one else in your industry is using, so you can present it as a solid value proposition that attracts attention and interest.

This is how a brand is built. Your brand is the image that your customers recognise and associate with your business. Your value proposition should support your brand identity, including your logo, motto, colours, and all the aesthetics and visible business philosophies that represent your company.

You have to separate it from the package and present your personal perspective to your customers. Do your best to present that unique value proposition to your market so that you can capture a market share and start building your conversion rates.

To advertise your brand and differentiate yourself, you will need to speed up your marketing plan and use more and more places to present your brand to the public. You can be a lot better than your rivals, but it doesn’t matter if your prospects don’t even know you’re in the game.

Also Read: Planning for 2020: Leveraging technology to alleviate basic business woes

Use social networks, word of mouth, cold call, direct mail and other tried and true marketing techniques. Make sure you have a well-optimised online presence, develop lead generation technology and capture contact information, such as high-quality content on your site, a newsletter and gift of information for customers.

It is out of touch with customer needs

If you don’t keep in touch with your customers and they understand what they need and the comments they give, your business will fail. Your customers may like your product or service, but they may like it if they change this function or modify that process.

What are they telling you? Are you listening Or is there a market decline? Are you still selling what you are selling? These are all important questions to ask and answer.

Unprofitable business model

Similar to leadership failure is to build a business on a model that is not solid, works without a business plan and seeks a business for which there is no proven revenue stream. The idea of the business may be good, but if there are no established strategic guidelines, the implementation of the idea may fail.

Develop a complete business plan that includes financial forecasts based on projected revenue, strategic marketing, and challenge management solutions to overcome potential obstacles and competitive activities.

Create a milestone chart with specific tasks and objectives specified over time so that you can measure success, solve problems as they occur, and stay on track. A solid business model that incorporates best practices can help your company avoid failure.

Also Read: 7 ways to build a successful digital business

Poor financial management

You should know, until the last penny, where does the money in your business come from and where is it going to make your business successful. Your business may also fail if it lacks a contingency financing plan, a store of money that you can turn into in the event of a financial crisis.

Sometimes, people start businesses with dreams of making money but do not have the ability or interest to manage cash flow, taxes, expenses, and other financial problems. Bad accounting practice puts a business on a direct path to failure.

If 50 per cent of new businesses fail, 50 per cent of new companies can succeed. Starting a business is an exciting endeavor that requires a clearly defined product or service and strong market demand.

Whether you want to start a new business or are already doing it, you should understand that success depends on careful strategic planning and sound fiscal management that starts before it starts and continues throughout the life of the business is.

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A year-end throwback featuring three of our startup partners in 2019

2019 proved to be a great year for startups. Funding news upon funding news upon funding news dotted our newsfeed so much that exclusive monthly roundups were drafted for them. The fundings traversed from early stage to late stage and moved across verticals. Will 2020 be as bountiful? We can only wait.

Meanwhile, on the partnership side of things, exclusive startup coverage has also increased this year. Each partnership had their stories to tell that’s uniquely their own, and tell it they did, on a tech and media platform that operates within the same spectrum — e27.

Whether they were created to cater for businesses or for consumers, they leveraged on the power of storytelling to engage potential partners, clients, or investors in the region.

Also read: The power of storytelling: how to engage your audience 

So, as we wrap up another year, allow us to walk you through three startup stories that graced our platform this year, and anecdotes about them that will linger long after the year is over.

Pocket Money — improving access to credit while enhancing ROI with a social repayment system

Pocket Money is already a win in my book, serving the underbanked at the heart of this startup’s mission. In this exclusive article, CEO Stefano Virgilli detailed several facets that differentiated Pocket Money from other micro-lending platforms. In particular, we found their ‘social repayment’ system to be quite the stand out.

How this works is that borrowers are given the option to earn payment credits by accomplishing certain tasks, ensuring the lender that they will have other means to get back their money should the borrower default on payment.

In talking about the inclusion of this unique concept within a familiar space, Virgilli emphasised that he would rather introduce small innovations that actually work, rather than radically disrupt the microlending industry in ways that may not work.

Clean on Demand — a one-stop-shop for cleaning and household repair services

“We clean everything except money,” quipped CEO Ben Xavier, serving as our introduction to this Echelon 2019 alumni. Clean on Demand tapped e27 to craft the article during their participation at the Echelon Asia Summit.

The article showcased a cleaning business that goes beyond cleaning — one that leverages on tech and automation. They also adjust with the market’s demands. This is a company that understands their strengths and innovates continuously from there.

Speaking about how Clean on Demand pursues innovation, Xavier has this nugget of wisdom to share: “Never ever procrastinate. It’s just suicide on installment plan.”

SalesCandy and their LMS platform that lets you close more sales

It’s one thing to start a business out of a perceived need, and another out of personal experience. SalesCandy founders Stanley Chee and Jeffry Chan belong to the latter category. The duo both ran performance marketing agencies in the past and had witnessed firsthand how potential leads were lost as a result of inefficient sales process management.

Stanley and Jeffry eventually created an Uber-style lead routing system to bridge the sales gap and leverage data analytics to measure and improve their clients’ future advertising efforts.

As they prepared for regional expansion, SalesCandy tapped e27 to tell its story, highlighting its wins, and putting into detail its future expansion plans.

With the aim to help clients close as many sales as they possibly can, SalesCandy continues to innovate all the way with their regional expansion.

Help is out there — your startup story is worth sharing

These are just three of the many startup stories we’ve shared this year. Anecdotes aside, it’s always a pleasure to see these pieces come to fruition — from ideation to publishing. Not only because it means work is done, but also because we believe that opportunities multiply when you put your story out there.

Your prospective clients, potential investors or partners, and even future rockstar employees could be reading about you!

We’d love to give every startup a chance to tell their story, highlight their wins, elaborate on their products or services, and get connected to the rest of the ecosystem.

To explore possible collaborations, drop us an email at engage@e27.co or visit us at https://e27.co/advertise/. Our best consultants are here to connect with you!

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There are many reasons why a piece of funding news can rock a startup ecosystem. It could be the amount that the startup raised (Unicorn! Decacorn! Hippogriff!) or the investor behind it (Somebody famous, such as a boxer or an actor).

This year, we have seen several funding announcements that are significant not only to the parties involved but also to the ecosystem where they are based. Unlike our routine monthly funding rounds listicle, this time we decided to group the funding announcement into categories based on verticals or markets. Because, after a while, you just see a pattern emerging.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 funding news that rocked the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem this year:

The edutech sector graduates to the next level

2019 was an exciting year for Indonesian edutech sector as three of the leading startups in the market —Ruangguru, Zenius, and HarukaEdu— announced their later stage funding rounds. Even better: Ruangguru raised up to US$150 million, a number which is said to be the highest ever raised by an edutech startup in the market. Beyond Indonesia, we also saw investment flowing to the Philippines, with a funding round for Edukasyon.

Fintech continues to shine

As a sector, fintech remains popular among investors in the Southeast Asian region. Notable funding announcements include investment into startups such as Kredivo, MyCash, iSTOX, PayMongo, or Crowde. As the market becomes more open and receptive towards fintech innovation, investors are also becoming more confident in Southeast Asia’s ability to turn into a fintech hub.

Also Read: Indonesian legal tech startup Legalku raises seed funding from UMG Idealab

Property tech finds a home in Southeast Asia

The most interesting part about property tech investment in 2019 was the variety of it. There are investments directed towards emerging markets such as ShweProperty in Myanmar, the more mature markets such as Travelio in Indonesia, hotel and hospitality sector such as RedDoorz, and property marketplaces such as 99co.

Automotive e-commerce platforms are making moves

Automotive e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia are also gaining popularity among investors. Interestingly, startups such as Carsome are mentioning “profitability” as part of their goal for the next year. This part of the great wave of change that was triggered by coworking space giant WeWork’s failure to get listed.

Investors are getting their dose of caffeine

What are you going to be without your morning cup of coffee? Apparently even rapper Jay-Z knows how much you love your daily dose of caffeine. Since last 2018, VC firms in Southeast Asia started to invest in non-tech companies such as Alpha JWC Ventures’s investment in Kopi Kenangan, East Ventures’s investment in Fore Coffee, and Intudo Ventures’s investments in Artotel and R Fitness. The trend reached a new height in 2019 with Kopi Kenangan raising an extended Series A funding round from US celebrities and athletes such as Jay-Z and Serena Williams.

Emerging market is where the actions are happening

2019 is the year of emerging markets with Vietnam and Myanmar as the centre of all these activities. Investors are getting increasingly interested in the market as they invested in Vietnamese startups such as Propzy or Rever and Burmese startups such as Kone Si or ShweProperty.

Investing for the environment

When you are investing in a startup, you are investing in innovation. This is especially important in the context of environmental protection, and luckily, investors are growing more interested in investing in companies with a strong social impact. Think CricketOne or Bambooloo. In fact, Big Idea Ventures launched a fund that focusses on investing in the development of meat alternatives.

Also Read: Vietnamese bus booking platform VeXeRe raises funding to accelerate products development

Giving birth to new unicorns

Despite heightening scrutiny against tech startups and their valuations, investors continue on investing in companies that would later become a unicorn. Singapore saw the birth of its latest unicorn when Trax announced its Series D funding round, while Indonesia saw its fifth unicorn in OVO.

Healthtech, medtech investments are looking healthy

Another sector that is gaining popularity in Southeast Asia is healthtech and medtech. One of the latest was an investment in Zenyum, a dentistry startup, and an investment into AWAK, a wearable dialysis device.

Securing new funds

Startups are not the only ones raising funding this year. Many VC and CVC firms were also announcing their new funds in 2019. The latest that we saw was EV Growth’s fund, announced at the final week of the year. What was interesting about 2019 was also the variety of funds that are being launched. While most funds remain sector-agnostic, some funds chose to focus on a particular vertical, such as New Protein or women entrepreneurs.

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