The Startup Ecosystem of Taiwan

Taiwan has a history of being a nation of innovation; many of the world’s manufactured goods were produced here before China opened its doors to the global economy. With strong tech talent and some of the most rigorous intellectual protection laws in the world, Taiwan’s startup ecosystem is well positioned for success, regardless of current geopolitical tensions.
The country has many large and impressive tech companies, like Foxconn and Asus, giving the ecosystem a unique edge in anything hardware-related. The most strategic Taiwanese corporation is TSMC, the world’s most valuable semiconductor company. TSMC is a lesson to all countries that face geopolitical challenges: When a country manages to create a company of this scale, it adds an additional layer of strategic strength and forges alliances that are critical for its future prosperity.
Aligned with the historic success of Taiwan’s global companies, the country’s shift in focus toward startups is seeing positive results. Various leading government organizations, such as the Taiwan Tech Arena, are investing heavily in developing and promoting the country’s startup ecosystem with initiatives such as the Employment Gold Card and the Entrepreneur Visa, both aimed at attracting foreign talent. Moreover, initiatives such as Startup Island TAIWAN have a great impact on creating a national brand for Taiwan’s startup ecosystem.
Taiwan’s entrepreneurs aim for global integration of their solutions because the local market is too small for startups to focus domestically, unlike high population countries such as India and China. This gives the country an edge in building global success stories like Appier, a startup that became Taiwan’s first digital unicorn as well as its first exit after going public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Afterward, more startups achieved unicorn status: Gogoro, Just Kitchen, and 91App. The tech scene is strengthened by global giants such as Google and Microsoft who have opened data and research centers in Taiwan.
While the country implements more policies to encourage entrepreneurship, we hope to see more people forgo safe, guaranteed jobs and embrace entrepreneurism. It is also a positive sign for the appeal of the country to see leading tech figures based in Taiwan, including co-founder of Youtube Steve Chen and tech thought leader Ben Thompson from Stratechery.