More than a dozen startups aided by the Chinese-giant Alibaba join their peers from other countries for the first time at this year’s show..

InnoVEX, an exhibit area created specifically to showcase the latest groundbreaking technology at COMPUTEX TAIPEI, takes the stage again this year to provide the most critical elements for a successful tech startup — networking opportunities with global buyers, investors and manufacturers, as well as catching up with the latest industry trends.

Because of its growing influence, InnoVEX at Computex has attracted local and global high-potential startups, organizations and teams to join the annual event, making it the largest startup platform in Asia this year.
The exhibit opens from June 6 to June 8 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 3, boasting 388 tech startups from 21 countries, with at least a third focusing on artificial intelligence solutions — one of COMPUTEX’s major themes this year.
According to the 2018 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, global venture capital contributed US$140 billion in 2017 — a new high in the past 20 years. Folowing such high growth, COMPUTEX has decided to make innovation and startups InnoVEX’s major theme this year, seeking to create an innovative and smart ecosystem by merging resources and know-how from all corners of the world.
“Taiwan’s industry makeup is moving from the past procurement-focused industries to ‘solution provider,’ with a strong emphasis in developing applications,” said Walter Yeh, president and CEO of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, one of the main organizers of COMPUTEX.

Major Attraction at InnoVEX

For the first time in the event’s history, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, which is devoted to investing in entrepreneurs and young people from Hong Kong and Taiwan, leads a group of promising startups to take part in InnoVEX, giving them a much-needed opportunity to use the world-class platform to directly exchange views with their global peers, providing a vital growth oppportunity.
As investment capital is critical for a tech startup to develop
and grow, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, a not-for-profit initiative launched by Alibaba Group, decided to establish a HK$1 billion fund
and NT$10 billion fund to support rising businesses and communities
in Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively.
Technologies developed by these startups mostly focus on AI applications and solutions, ranging from health care, property development, augmented and virtual reality, e-sports and gaming to video AI and e-commerce platforms.
Viscovery Pte. LTD, a world leading video AI company, is among the startups that have used the fund to expand and become a globaly recognized company.
Established in 2013, Viscovery has based its products in deep learning and computer vision technology that can be applied to enterprise-level digital image and video recognition over a wide range of categories.
With the advent of self-driving vehicles becoming a reality rather than a dream for the future, Fintech company Adenovo has taken a different track by concentrating on risk management and car financing with AI technology.
Amwise focuses on advanced precision medicine in oncology, striving to shape a better world for cancer patients. The company provides healthcare professionals and patients with quantitative data to help determine appropriate approaches to treatment.
Extending traditional property rights to digital property, Bitmark assigns property titles to digital data and then records the ownership and history of these titles in a blockchain.
Another Alibaba-funded company, Health2Sync, scales diabetes care by providing a digital engagement platform that is comprised of a mobile app for diabetics, cloud-based analytics and a cloud platform for healthcare providers.
In-Demand Peripheral Events An exhibiting area is not complete without peripheral events to get the atmosphere going. The Taipei Computer Association has stated that the startup ecosystem faces a demand from the VC community for prospective startups to invest in, and the startups themselves need investment and coverage.

Two stages — the Pi Stage and Center Stage — will be offering a series of events ranging from keynote speeches and panel discussions to pitch contests and matchmaking opportunities in order to address the needs of the startup and VC community.
At the Pi Stage, new tech startups will have the opportunity to take to the stage in events such as the “Global Startup Demo,” “InnoVEX Pitch Contests” and “AI+ Solution Matchmaking.”
Experts such as Chinese Business Incubation Association Chairman Ching Yao Huang, Asia Silicon Valley Development Agency CTO Tsung-Ching Wu, Business Foundations Inc CEO Philip Kemp from Australia, and Thailand’s Sansanee Huabsomboon, director of the Technology Business Incubation Center, NSTDA, are slated to offer their startup ecosystem insights on how best to leverage local incubators and accelerators in order to quicky grow a business.