Research

In addition to the 10 foreign startup databases introduced in the previous two articles, there are 5 free startup databases in Taiwan. We describe them as follows:

(1) DIGITIMES Dtalk base - promotes business cooperation opportunities between large enterprises and startups

Photo: https://www.digitimes.com.tw/iot/startup_comp.asp

DIGITIMES is a professional media in Taiwan that has operated for more than 20 years. It focuses on the electronic industry, such as semiconductors, computers, and telecommunications. In addition to publishing physical publications, it also operates websites in Chinese and English languages, provides online databases, industry analysis reports, and research reports. It also hosts D Forum, an industry forum, to share the latest industry trends with participants. In 2017, D talk was launched. Based on different topics, it provides opportunities for corporate customers to communicate with startups. To build a cooperation channel between startups and ICT industry, DIGITIMES further launched the Dtalk base, a startup database, in May 2019. The startups that have completed uploading data to the database will get the opportunities to collaborate with more than 90,000 corporate members. It, therefore, promotes business development while providing innovative solutions for enterprises, both online and offline.

The Dtalk base startup database (https://www.digitimes.com.tw/iot/startup_comp.asp) is free for use. It includes information such as industry attributes, technical attributes, key services, company profiles, capital amounts, solutions & services, contact information, fundraising information, and media coverage. The popular searched industry includes AI, IoT, 5G, data analysis, and cloud computing. As the readers browse the webpages, they will also get the recommendation for more similar startups. In the media coverage section, DIGITIMES reporters cut in from the technical point of view to introduce the startups. At present, more than 60 entrepreneurial projects have been registered.

The startup team can Click and Apply to join the Dtalk Base startup database.

(II)   EZ Startup - Selected Entrepreneurs Partner Platform

Founded in 2016, EZ Startup provides one-stop service of entrepreneurship matching for startups. It assists startups in finding partners, team building and entrepreneurial resources, and also offers matching services for website building, office, accounting, taxation, and trademark patents. Since its launch at the end of 2018, the fundraising matching service has helped startups in matching angel investors. Startups can log in their business history and information on this website (https://ezstartup.cc/ideas.html). They can fill in fields including: the name of the founder, company profile, product introduction, service area, official website, media coverage, operation stage, investment stage, expected investment amount, share transfer, company highlights, team, vacancy, product concept, pain point solutions, business model, fundraising plan, medium-term business plan, team formation process, competitive advantage, market size and target market share, target customer, and business plan (downloadable for investors only). Currently, at least 730 venture projects have been registered on the website.

Photo: https://ezstartup.cc/ideas.html

(III) IEIT - International Entrepreneur Initiative Taiwan - Social Innovation Organization Registration Database

International Entrepreneur Initiative Taiwan (https://sme.moeasmea.gov.tw/startup/) was launched in 2015 and built by SMEA, MOEA. It is Taiwan's largest entrepreneurship resource platform to provide information on entrepreneurship loans, startup entrepreneurship, writing tutor of business plans, and entrepreneurship consultation services. Since 2018, the "Social Startup Enterprise Registration Database" has been established to accept active data registration from enterprises that use innovative methods to solve social problems (https://sme.moeasmea.gov.tw/startup/modules/se/mod_case/). At present, nearly 400 companies have registered their data. The information includes the company name in English and Chinese languages, organization type, names of the person in charge, number of employees, time of establishment, business administration number, registered capital, contact information, company address, website, business content (including social purposes and characteristics), company's main business items/products and article of incorporation.

Photo: https://sme.moeasmea.gov.tw/startup/modules/se/mod_case/#

(IV)MeetHub, A Startup Community Exchange Platform - With the Highest Visibility in The Fields of Innovative Entrepreneurship and Technology Media

MeetHub, a startupcommunity exchange platform (https://meethub.bnext.com.tw/) was a new platform launched by the Meet, an entrepreneurship hub, in the second half of 2017. It is open for registration (https://goo.gl/6pZyik). Users are free to create startup company profile. It invites all users using the wiki model (to edit and update together) to build Taiwan's most complete entrepreneurial database. There are currently more than 600 startup companies registered. The Meet, an entrepreneurship hub, owns the highest visibility in the fields of innovative entrepreneurship and technology media through keeping hosting activities and operating the community and media.

The company information includes the time of establishment, company area, industry, fundraising stage, fundraising amount, number of employees, development stage, target markets, service/product, website, competition status, media coverage. Users can search by specifying any fields.

(V)FINDIT Early-Stage Funding Information Platform -  Everything You Need to Know about Startup Fundraising

In the ecosystem of innovative entrepreneurship, capital plays a vital role. However, the information efficiency of the early-stage investment market is an urgent problem to be solved. Startups often have difficulties in grasping the market outlook, investor information, innovation trends, and business opportunities, as well as suitable funding channels. Besides, investors need moredeals with quality, potential targets, and more comprehensive trend insights. However, expensive information cost hinders the development of the startup environment.

To help innovative entrepreneurs and investors to grasp trends and explore business opportunities, SMEA, MOEA established an early-stage funding information platform —FINDIT (https://findit.org.tw/indexV2.aspx), in 2016. To eliminate the risk of entrepreneurship and investment caused by lacking information transparency. In 2017, further information on equity investment transactions was included to make the early-stage investment information on FINDIT platform more representative. In 2018, a formal data authorization contract was signed with Crunchbase, and a membership system was implemented. Driven by the development of big data analytics tools and high-quality research on the FINDIT platform, FINDIT has gradually gained traction in the field of early-stage investment. In 2017 and 2018, Angels and Startup Resources Platform and Investment Matching Platform have been merged one after another.

In 2019, the FINDIT development goal is to transform from a database platform to a fundraising assistance platform. Through user interviews and workshops, FINDIT learned about the most popular projects on the platform. By optimizing the UI/UX comprehensively, the efficiency of searching was improved, and reading became more comfortable. It also put the new plan "FINDIT VIP" exclusive zone online to provide information that startups and investors concerned, strengthen online and offline interactions, and then collect user behavior data to create a smart recommendation system. The whole new platform layout will be launched along with the English version at the end of August 2019. It is expected to help domestic and foreign startups and investors to obtain critical information for early-stage investment and create a win-win situation matching both fundraising and investment sides.

Over the years, the FINDIT platform has continuously collected and updated the list of startups and investment institutions in Taiwan by hosting events, participating in the activities of startup entrepreneurship and online searching. Currently, there are more than 3,200 Taiwanese startups data on the website. However, compared with the above four websites, FINDIT does not open to users to log in and build up data, but is updated by itself. The information includes company name, industrial category, date of establishment, date of receive funding, funding rounds (or series), funding amount (US$), business administration number, number of team member, headquarter, official website, the person in charge, and product/service introduction. Industry category includes media and cultural content creation, information technology and applications, network technology and applications, enterprise products and services, biomedical and health care, consumer goods and services, electronics industry, mobile and telecommunications, risk and security, environment and energy, public utilities, financial, education, leisure, agriculture, forestry, fishing and animal husbandry, industry, and transportation. Also, at the end of the year, the FINDIT research team will publish the annual statistics of Taiwan's startup ventures, and statistics of Taiwan's startup venture capital funding. From it, you will be able to get a glimpse of the startups' distribution in the industries and the number of startups establishment by year, as well as the trend of startup capital funding in Taiwan. Those who are interested in the event are welcomed to sign up at: https://www.accupass.com/event/1907170408517990544100.

Photo: https://findit.org.tw/twCompanyList.aspx

Bibliography

1.            DIGITIMES, Technology section, 2019/5/29, Dtalk base Startup Database Officially Launched! http://tinyurl.com/y2og7bq3

2.            DIGITIMES-Dtalk base：https://www.digitimes.com.tw/iot/startup_comp.asp

3.            EZ Startup - Project Search：https://ezstartup.cc/ideas.html

4.            FINDIT Platform - Startup Enterprise Database: https://findit.org.tw/twCompanyList.aspx

5.            IEIT, Web of Startup Dreams Realization - Social Innovation Organization Registration Database：https://sme.moeasmea.gov.tw/startup/modules/se/mod_case/#

MeetHub - Startup Database: https://meethub.bnext.com.tw/base/