Taiwan Government launches startup program “Taiwan Tech Arena”

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) has launched a new startup program called Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA). Located in the heart of Taipei City, inside Taipei Arena, TTA claims to be a tech innovation and entrepreneurship hub connecting the world's tech startup ecosystems under one roof. Its main mission is to cultivate deep technology entrepreneurship, foster commercialisation of innovation and build an international tech startup ecosystem in Taiwan.

Over the past few years, MoST states that it has also been investing in the fundamental research of frontier technologies such as AI in schools and research centres, as well as encouraging entrepreneurship among researchers and scientists by easing regulations, providing supportive startup programs, and much more to create a robust pipeline of talent and new ventures. These efforts combined with the availability of key technologies from global manufacturing companies have made Taiwan the optimal place for the development of AI and IoT in many domains including smart manufacturing, healthcare, cybersecurity, etc. TTA promises to act as a facilitator of deep technology ventures to enable innovation and the cultivation of new industries.

TTA is also collaborating with corporate partners such as Acer, AWS, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Trend Micro in multiple areas such as AI talent development, cloud-computing transition, rapid prototyping and software technology development.

TTA's partnerships with foreign and domestic accelerators, such as 500 Startups, Techstars and SOSV-MOX, promises to expedite the growth of over 100 startups per year through three to six-month acceleration courses featuring experienced international mentors, workshops and face-to-face consultation.

In Taiwan, startups appear to be benefitted from an optimal market size and swift market response, making it an ideal place for new product testing before launching in countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Rapid Investment of Foreign and Domestic Capital

One of the key missions of TTA is acclaimed to obtain funding for startups. Taiwan is a prime environment for investment due to the quality of its established infrastructure, free flow of information, respect for freedom and sound legal system.

MoST has to date provided funding support of USD $77.26 million to 50 startups through the Taiwan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC) located in Silicon Valley. Through the Taiwan Silicon Valley Tech Fund, MoST and the National Development Fund (NDF) have also partnered with multiple venture capitalists to further inject a total of USD $60 million into the capital pool with investment priorities on TTA startups. In addition, Taiwania Capital, another key tech venture investment firm initiated by Taiwan government, is also collaborating with TTA to support tech venture initiatives. Moreover, TTA will host high-profile pitch and match events as well as systematically match startups with international investment based on a curated Taiwan startup database. TTA intends to play a key role in energising Taiwan's startup culture and propelling both domestic and foreign startups onto the global stage.