Taiwan Unicorn Appier Bets On AI-Driven Computer software For Digital Advertising

Teachers-turned Yu Chih-han and Winnie Lee led Appier to develop into Taiwan’s first mentioned unicorn. Now they’re betting on world wide demand for the internet marketing firm’s AI insights.


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s Yu Chih-han navigated a location in a Boston parking garage in 2010, he knew there was a better way. Many years previously the personal computer science university student experienced designed AI software program for a self-driving vehicle for a university competitiveness. “That’s the second I felt we had to make AI not just a point in academia, but extra broadly accessible for organization,” says the 43-yr-aged cofounder and CEO of Taipei-centered SaaS organization Appier.

Jointly with his wife, COO Winnie Lee, they have finished just that—representing a new technology of tech expertise in Taiwan that has uncovered accomplishment outside the island’s mainstay components sector. The pair have scaled Appier into a billion-dollar program company (the only other people to achieve unicorn status in Taiwan are electric powered scooter developer Gogoro and program agency 91App). A community supplying on the Tokyo Stock Exchange elevated $270 million very last yr, valuing the organization at approximately $1.4 billion.

Now the organization heads are eyeing further expansion in the U.S. and new techniques to extend their merchandise portfolio, says Yu, who spoke with Lee from their office environment in Taipei. The enterprise specializes in combining device understanding with massive information to construct a existence in digital marketing—using AI to forecast shopper actions and personalize messaging across units.



The company’s financials have tracked escalating need for digital marketing and advertising providers, touted as a superior-worth solution to improving returns on ad financial investment and minimizing shopper turnover. Revenue rose 41% in 2021 to ¥12.7 billion ($111 million) from a calendar year previously, marking its 2nd straight year of expansion. Its operating reduction shrank to ¥1.1 billion and Ebitda turned constructive for the very first time at ¥42 million. And there’s big likely for further more progress: The electronic marketing and advertising software package market place arrived at $57 billion in 2021 and is anticipated to extend at a CAGR of 19% over the upcoming 10 years, in accordance to U.S. researcher Grand View Investigate.

Still, it is been a bumpy trip for traders. Following a powerful start—Appier’s shares closed up 19% on their to start with day of investing March very last year—the inventory has dropped 43% over the earlier 12 months to have a current market cap of ¥108 billion (as of April 8), significantly even more than the Nikkei 225 index’s 8% decrease over the identical interval. Yu characteristics the tumble to “corrections” over 6 months, even though Brady Wang, a Taipei-centered analyst with market place intelligence company Counterpoint Exploration, notes tech stocks all over the world are beneath stress from money market place fluctuations. Lee shrugs it off. “Whether or not [Appier] is a unicorn doesn’t issue,” she suggests. It’s far better to be a “dragon,” she adds, since “when the traders devote in you, they’re seeking for a organization that can carry them returns.”

Appier was state-of-the-art from the get-go, says Wang. It was an early mover in AI marketing and advertising in Asia and has created what the analyst phone calls a coveted database of behavioral styles. Which is important in assisting providers come across new income, predict how consumers will act and automate electronic campaigns with appropriate messaging and purchasing incentives across units and many channels, like social media and applications. Turning data into perception is vital but turning that perception into action will be crucial for most firms, Lee said in the course of a media job interview previous calendar year.

“Advertisers are in determined have to have of new ways to target their advertising and marketing in the experience of the retirement of the cookie,” says Wang, which are now being increasingly blocked by tech products and solutions. “Nowadays, consumers typically use distinctive units, these kinds of as PCs, smartphones and tablets to accessibility info. Having said that, numerous precision promoting corporations tend to assess only one particular gadget, so it isn’t uncomplicated to realize the gains,” he states. That edge provides Appier leverage in an increasingly crowded marketplace using AI to drive marketing that consists of levels of competition from software package giants Adobe and Salesforce.

Yu claims the firm’s deep-tech software package helps it arrive at 15 billion people everyday across practically 2 billion mobile gadgets in Asia, and the firm’s tech generates 51 billion predictions everyday. Its greatest markets are Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, with a 1,088-sturdy consumer record that involves Carrefour and Google, alongside with on the web vacation agencies, digital gaming providers and other people. Its progress displays broader tendencies in Taiwan’s startup scene. Very last calendar year, AI and major info companies designed up virtually 12% of all startups (retail and wholesale topped the checklist at 22%), according to PwC’s 2021 Taiwan Startup Ecosystem Study. Appier experienced just 700 clientele in 2019.



Appier acquired its begin 12 several years in the past in Malden, Massachusetts, a small travel from Harvard University where Yu was researching for his doctorate in pc science. He shared an condominium with Lee (they experienced met at Stanford several years previously whilst pursuing master’s degrees) and Joe Su, also a postgrad computer system science pupil at Harvard. All 3 are from Taiwan, says Lee, and have been motivated by the American startup tradition.

Led by Yu, the trio brainstormed at their eating table on approaches to commercialize AI in a mass market. They had 9 suggestions all told and commenced a gaming corporation known as Plaxie in 2010 that applied AI to manage an avatar when the player went offline. But the trio observed it hard to monetize Plaxie’s technology. “We don’t give up very easily,” Lee recalls. They pivoted to electronic marketing and baking AI into massive data to support providers better fully grasp consumers. Soon after graduating Yu returned to Taiwan and established up Appier in 2012, joined by Su as a cofounder and chief technologies officer and Lee who experienced just finished her Ph.D. in immunology at Washington University in St. Louis. For startup capital, each place amongst $100,000 and $150,000 of their personal dollars into the venture.

Lee, 41, who debuted on Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen list previous 12 months, at to start with did “random things” for Appier which includes recruitment. Her research experienced nothing at all to do with AI, but she located synergy. “Coming from a analysis background in which I regularly researched novel genes, I have an capacity to be resilient,” she says. “It’s ok when your hypothesis goes mistaken, simply because which is aspect of the experiment.”

Fueled by enterprise cash raised more than the future 7 years, Appier expanded outdoors Asia, delving ever deeper into AI. Sequoia Money India turned its first trader with $6 million in 2014, Yu claims, and it was notably the fund’s very first investment decision in Taiwan. Quite a few a lot more funding rounds adopted that attracted the likes of Jafco, SoftBank and UMC Capital, between other folks. In full the corporation racked up $162 million in funding in advance of its IPO in Japan, following its intense enlargement there. It was the initial Taiwanese company to record there in above 20 decades.

The corporation specializes in combining device finding out with massive data to create a presence in electronic marketing and advertising.

The capital raise went toward building new goods and investing in expertise. Virtually a fifth of its some-570 staff are in gross sales, says Yu, and they expend any place from 6 weeks to six months pitching clientele, such as those people who take care of marketing and advertising budgets. “All these selections and stakeholders require to be pleased in buy to transfer ahead,” he claims. Appier aims to increase income 38% to ¥17.5 billion this year—while Ebitda is projected to increase almost 1,270% to ¥575 million. The firm sees higher demand from customers in the U.S. and is also targeting financial commitment there to put together servers and stock ability. Though the U.S. only contributes about 4% to Appier’s leading line, it noticed 50% quarter-on-quarter progress over the earlier a few quarters, Yu suggests.

Very last May well, the organization obtained Taiwan-dependent conversational AI chatbox BotBonnie for an undisclosed volume, adhering to its purchase of Japanese AI startup Emotion Intelligence in 2019 and Indian material advertising enterprise QGraph a year previously. Even now, Yu does not see M&A as a significant driver of potential business enterprise, alternatively it’s harnessing new systems that mirror the human brain’s capacity to understand from experience. “If we can realize that, then I think [artificial] intelligence can evolve by by itself,” he states. “We really don’t have to do a great deal of programming throughout distinctive responsibilities.”

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