At this year’s InnoVEX, the Taiwan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center hosted a pitching competition from a diverse set of startups

This week, the tech community is descending on Taiwan to attend the world famous Computex conference in Taipei. This year, the city is hosting another conference next door called InnoVEX, which is focussed on startups and entrepreneurship.

The conference boasts boosts representation from stakeholders like the newly launched Taiwan Tech Arena, the Alibaba Entrepreneur’s Fund and the StarFab Accelerator.

Part of the event involved a pitching competition from the Taiwan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center. 21 startups took the stage and their companies ranged from biotechnology to dating apps.

It was a diverse bunch but also dominated by deep-tech startups. Whether it was food safety or brain cancer treatments, these companies were built on Phd-level (and above) science or technology.

But don’t take my word for it. Let’s meet the companies!

1. AI Matchmaker

AI Matchmaker wants to add high-level engineering to the online dating industry. The idea is to move beyond the ‘swipes’ and use artificial intelligence to analyse sociology, anthropology and psychology to make sure the connections are ideal.

The company focusses on Taiwanese and ethnic Chinese living abroad and estimates its target market is 75 million people. It also offers premium services such as an online dating coach and a personal consultation.

2. Auto Drive Solutions

This company is building mobility solutions for driverless vehicles. For example, Auto Drive Solutions has built a radar positioning system that pinpoints the location of trains down to the metre. This means operators can use the technology to solve inefficiencies with in the system and improve synchronisation.

Auto Drive Solutions says its technology can help synchonise traffic flows and allow vehicles to talk to one another, which is crucial as we move into a future of autonomous vehicles.

3. Construct Studio

Construct Studio is a “wordpress for gaming” and has built a platform to lower the barrier to entry to gaming development. The startup claims it can help developers build their products five times faster by reducing the time spent on repetitive work.

The template itself is called Vera and the company is following a subscription SaaS business model. They are raising a seed round after having received US$160,000 in previous investment.

4. Expivi

This company wants to bring real-time AR and VR visualisation to the retail masses. It is a product that allows people to see an AR-version of a their desired couch to make sure the size and color works for a home. Expivi realises companies like IKEA have their own version of this technology, but they are targetting everyone and want to allow SMEs to use this tool as well.

5. Giant Bio Technology

Giant Bio is reinventing traditional herbal medicine to introduce it into world of agriculture (starting with acquaculture but moving beyond in their future).  The product extracts and purified bacteria-killing compounds to make a dense liquid that is poured into fish farms to kill bacteria.

The company is targetting Southeast Asia and has begun trials in Taiwan and the Philippines. It has received a US$1.4 million seed fund.

6. GiftPack

Pitching itself as a way to stay in touch with loved ones abroad, GiftPack wants to help people buy customised gifts for those they care about. The issue faced today is that many long-distance gifts lack customisation or the “personal touch”. GiftPack wants to solve this by having a team of on-the-ground delivery people who can fill an order, make it personal and deliver to a loved one in about three hours.

The startup says it has 12,00 registered users.

7. Goldsitron

Goldsitron is trying to bring a low-radiation solution to brain cancer treatment. The technology is called TSER technology and the company believes it can extend a patient’s life by killing cancer cells while also being far less intense than current radiation.

In the current form, the radiation treatment can be just as dangerous as the cancer for patients.

8. HISG Group

The HIS stands for Heat Insulated Solar and the G stands for Group. This company is building a thin solar glass that is slid in-between two glass window panels to make homes more energy efficient. HISG Group says it can help make solar panels more applicable to wide range of buildings.

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Instead of installing gigantic solar panels on roofs or in open-spaces, a regular window can be transformed into a renewable source of energy. The company is currently working on a project in Dubai and has nabbed US$1.3 million in support.

9. iAuto Technology

iAuto Technology is improving commercial automated guided vehicle (AGV) deployment. Think of a factory or hospital — a lot of time is spent delivering goods around the space. iAuto is building robots to do that work for people. While AGV technology is already big business, current solutions are either too specific or too expensive.

iAuto is building a skeleton model that can be customised to a specific customer’s needs.

10. Infermedica

Infermedica has built an artificial intelligence product that helps people figure out if a symptom requires a trip to the emergency room. The solution could save the healthcare industry millions of dollars because oftentimes people self-diagnose online and wind up taking unnecessary trips the emergency room.

A person will use the product to go through a set of questions which then are processed through the machine learning to see if the symptoms require a trip to the hospital. Infermedica is white-labelling the product.

11. Instant Nano Biosensors

This company has a patented Optical Faber Sensing System. Or in laymen’s words, a system for testing blood for various diseases. Instant nano Biosensors is useful for longterm care centers to help doctors analyse (and monitor) blood for diseases like cancer.

12. Lightyear

Lightyear is building a solar-based electric car that looks and acts just like a standard coupé. The solar panels are placed on the roof and hood and it can drive at 65kph (while still charging) and has a range of 1,500km. The reason it works is because the car is incredibly energy efficient, so it requires less electricity to operate. This means the solar panels can provide enough energy keep the car moving.

Lightyear is hoping to build 1,000 cars by 2021.

13. Midas Touch

Midas Touch has built a physical lock that can be opened only via fingerprints. So instead of worrying about carrying keys everywhere, the lock can only be opened by the owner’s finger. Furthermore, the company also has USB drives to further secure sensitive information.

14. Moovby

Moovby is a P2P car sharing platform that lets people rent out their cars while they are idle. Imagine making a few extra bucks while sitting in the office by allowing someone to use the car for a bit. It also makes it super easy to rent a nearby car for people who need to run a quick errand.

The company makes money by taking a 20 per cent commission on each transaction and the startup claims to have over 10,000 registered users, 1,000 cars while facilitating 1,200 bookings.

15. Myopiacure

Myopiacure is an eye-drop based medicine to help cure Myopia — or commonly known as nearsightedness. The distinguishing factor of this product is the fact that it does not dilate pupils. Dilated pupils is the major complaint about the company’s main competition.

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If school-age children who are showing signs of myopia start taking the eye drops once per day, Myopiacure things it can help eliminate myopia in millions of people.

16. Wind XO

Wind XO is building a unique solution to wind power energy. The goal of the company is to form a “net” that can be built on public infrastructure. The net is comprised of many smart wind power modules that form together to create a large whole (kind of like a school of fish).

The presentation showed mock-ups of Wind XO being built below highway overpasses or subways to highlight that it can be built within existing infrastructure.

17. OmniTrack

OmniTrack is a smart jacket that controls body temperature if the weather changes dramatically. The company is targetting the outdoor sporting market and it is not hard to see how it could be used in alpine sports. Furthermore, the company is building a social network to allow real-time weather pattern sharing so that OmniTrack customers can have precise information about their current location.

18. ReCactus

ReCactus is a reaction video social app that is getting a lot of love. Rather limiting social media to the basic functions such as the ‘like’ button, ReCactus lets people record reactions to videos and post them online. Oftentimes, reaction videos become more popular than the original, and this product allows people to create their own in a fast and easy manner.

ReCactus says it has 60,000 monthly active users. .

19. VRee

VRee is a virtual reality company that facilitates the development of multi-user, full-body VR experiences. The startup has an SDK it provides to clients to allow them to create personalised VR for their companies. For example, this product can be used just as easily by game developers as it can for training exercises. One of its more interesting use cases is the military, where theoretically soldiers can train themselves in situations that are impossible to replicate in the real world.

It provides clients with variable play spaces, hardware packages, platform licensing and help with installations. Vree is currently raising US$2 million.

20. Wiserger

This food safety detection system claims to reduce an 8-hour food safety detection process to just 30 minutes. Plus, Wiserger is working to solve the problem that quick-detection systems are unreliable. It also has a mobile strip that allows people to monitor the data via a device.

It also claims to be more affordable than the current market options, saying a typical test only costs US$15.

21. Wolf Dataware

This startup is a SaaS company that is helping anti-aging hospitals work to provide customised treatments to their patients. In the world of immunology and stem cell therapy, having data is key to tailoring a treatment to fit a patient’s needs. Considering that every individual is unique and aging treatments should be personalised, Wolf Dataware believes it can serve a growing market.

Furthermore, because it is a SaaS company that requires data, the company said it is moving towards becoming a data company.

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