TechCrunch Disrupt, held over three days in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA, concluded earlier this month. Twelve startup teams led by the Taiwan Startup Stadium (TSS), a subsidiary of the National Development Council, received attention from TechCrunch, NHK, and other media outlets during the event. Meanwhile, the "Rock the World" award, sponsored by the Taiwan Startup Stadium, was presented by Bendlabs from Utah, USA.Special soft silicon sensorIn the future, it will be able to be applied to different clothing due to its bendable properties, and can even be more easily used in various vehicles.
exceptCatFi, a cat face recognition feeder from Zillans, and the cardboard version, which is intended to be used to build more cat facial recognition data, attracted the attention of Chinese and foreign media on the first day, and was even reported on the TechCrunch website and official fan page. The smart motorcycle helmet launched by GHOSTA also attracted the attention of Japan's NHK, and the Flux multi-functional 3D printer was also interviewed by the well-known online live TV station TWiT. In addition, Vectr's design software even topped the rankings of Product Hunt, a website for expert reviews of new technology products.
During TechCrunch Disrupt, renowned Silicon Valley accelerators including 500 Startups, Y Combinator, and Techstars also took notice of the creativity and development of Taiwanese startups. Furthermore, the Taiwan Startup Arena facilitated visits to Silicon Valley companies such as Airbnb, MisFit, Facebook, and Nest Labs during the event, hoping to connect Taiwanese startups with international organizations and spark new opportunities.
The "Rock the World" award, presented by the Taiwan Startup Arena in Taiwan's honor, was selected through voting by startup teams participating in TechCrunch Disrupt worldwide. The winner, bendlabs, is from Utah, USA. Its products are mainly soft silicon sensors. Due to their inherent bendability and stretchability, they can be easily applied to various types of clothing or objects to help record various sensor data, and then develop more applications in conjunction with big data analysis.
In addition to participating in TechCrunch Disrupt, Taiwan Startup Arena stated that although Taiwan's investment in startups is smaller than that of China, Europe and the United States, it actually has a lot of startup talent. However, it lacks the ability to stimulate growth in a startup environment and many opportunities to be explored. Therefore, it hopes to help match Taiwanese startup teams with more resources, and at the same time, learn from startup teams from all over the world, rather than blindly developing in isolation.
In terms of future development vision, in addition to hoping that Taiwanese startup teams can continue to establish themselves in Taiwan and go global, we also hope that more global startup teams can come to Taiwan to develop, thereby connecting various industrial cooperation developments and further growing Taiwan's creative capabilities in the global market.
The 12 Taiwanese startup teams selected to participate in TechCrunch Disrupt are as follows:
- CatFi Cat Facial Recognition Feeder
- Codementor developer online teaching platform
- Defiderm Women's Skin Tester
- Flux Multi-Function 3D Printer
- Ghosta Smart Motorcycle Helmet
- Installments C2C installment payment platform
- Linqapp Live Translation App
- LUNA 360 Camera 360-degree fisheye VR camera
- Phone Doctor Plus Phone Function Check and Trade-in
- Triton Smart Dive Computer
- UXTesting Mobile User Experience Testing App
- Vectr designer collaboration tool
