The team behind the popular event ticketing and management platform Accupass (活動通) announced today that they accepted a round of investment. The terms of the deal were not disclosed in the announcement, though we understand it to be seven figures (US$), based on remarks made by the company’s CEO Ben Lo (羅子文) when asked.
The round was jointly led by Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of the US technology giant, and DCM, an early stage venture capital firm with a footprint in both the US and Asia. CYZone (創業邦) organizers of DEMO China also participated in the round. 
[read on!]
Singapore’s e27 is getting ready for its yearly Echelon conference, which is a showcase of the region’s best startups. The organization finds these teams by holding satellite events in local markets and inviting the best teams to present on the event’s Singaporean main stage.
This year, the organization will be holding satellite events in six different cities: Jakarta, Manila, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Tokyo, and for the first time ever, Taipei. [read on!]
by guest on March 12, 2012
Cameron Keng is a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur from New York. You can read more about Cameron on his website. Follow him on Twitter @cameronkeng.
The current obsession with “product” is probably the worst thing to hit the startup community since Color. Worry about selling. Building a product before you’re able to sell it is a guaranteed recipe to fail – hard. I recently started a new business and my first task was to sell. I pre-sold my product based on the idea alone before I ever spent a dollar on development. [read on!]
I’ve been riding bikes since I was a wee lad and continue to cycle Taipei on a single-speed beater. I love that so many of the world’s bikes and bike parts (like everything in the world) are Taiwanese made or designed, so I jumped on the chance to check the Taipei Cycle Show out this morning, which is currently on exhibit at the Nangang Exhibition Center and will be open to the public tomorrow (3/7) and tomorrow only.
If you’re in to bicycles, I suggest
you check it out. Admission for general public will be NT$200. Don’t miss the outdoor areas, where you can test dozens of bikes you wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to ride so freely (but get there early as I suspect crowds will be an issue). Here are five things I learned today:
[read on!]
From the presentations of the five Startup Labs teams on Friday came an announcement of a new startup resource in Taiwan. YSeed, a venture under the coordination of Yushan Ventures, aims to give startups all the resources, funding and mentoring to get them to the next stage, a lack of which many have commented on. By leveraging their international network in three continents, YSeed will hope to provide, as their website claims, 360-degree support of teams, including free work space in Taipei, seed funding, network events and access to their offices in Austria and San Francisco, which will come in handy when teams move into international markets.
YSeed will combine the existing event brands under Yushan Ventures’ stewardship including Mobile Monday, Startup Weekend and Startup Labs. The team also plans to add more targeted events in the future, to further enhance Taipei’s startup event scene, something which has been steadily improving over the last few months. What will be interesting to see is whether the addition of YSeed into Taiwan’s tech ecosystem will add any heat to an already red-hot accelerator scene. Already this past month we’ve seen TMI Labs burst onto the scene along with existing programs such as appWorks, co-work space IEH and IDEAS Show.
By all accounts it would appear that Taipei-based startups have an increasing amount of opportunities for funding, mentorship and support for growth. Now all that appears to be missing are the big sexy buyouts and follow-on investment rounds that will help propel these teams into the stratosphere.
Taiwanese businesses should find more Japanese partners. Such was the finding of Taiwan Institute of Economic Research economist Gordon Sun, who told CNA that as part of Taiwan’s strategy to weather potential global economic downturn, “Taiwan should seek cooperation with more of Japan’s small and medium-sized enterprises.” [read on!]
Not too long ago, Groupon had a comfortable seat atop the Taiwanese daily deals market. The end of 2011 saw Groupon with 52% or the group buying market, more than twice the second place Gomaji, which held 24% of the market.
Just two months later, the picture at the end of February tells a distinctly different story: Groupon has seen its share drop to 39% of the market, with its dominance being challenged by a Gomaji whose share has risen to nearly 31%. What the heck happened in those two months? [read on!]
