AppWorks Accelerator

Turbocharging Asia’s Top AI & Blockchain Startups

Join AppWorks. Speed up your growth. Be part of the strongest founder community in Greater Southeast Asia.

We got honest feedback from AppWorks partners, met fellow founders who became life-time friends, and continued to benefit tremendously from the AppWorks network long after graduating from the accelerator. Joining AppWorks is one of the best decisions AsiaYo has ever made.

CK CHENG, FOUNDER / CEO, ASIAYO (AW#12)

Every 6 months, we invite up to 40 of the most talented AI & blockchain startups across Greater Southeast Asia to join AppWorks Accelerator.

The AppWorks Team, our 60+ mentors, and the alumni community are all there to help you fine-tune your product and business model. And when Demo Day rolls around, you get to tell your story in front of 1,200 investors and potential business partners that are interested in collaborating with AI / Blockchain startups. There is no better way to get connected and win partnerships. Best of all, it’s completely free for startups to join.

Achieve Better Product-Market Fit, Win Key Business Partners, and Become a Better Founder

A small team working out of a garage is no longer the most efficient way to build a startup. It’s difficult for an AI startup to establish a strong data pipeline or stay up-to-date on the latest algorithm breakthroughs, for an IoT startup to source and work with suppliers and manufacturing partners, for a blockchain startup to keep up with everything going on in the crypto world. Building a startup in an accelerator, together with a group of smart and driven founders all working on the most cutting-edge technologies is a much more effective way to solve the above problems, while maximizing your chance to make a big impact in the 21st century.

What will you get at AppWorks?

Up to 80 like-minded founders working on the latest applications of AI & blockchain as your batchmates, with an opportunity to forge lifelong relationships
An alumni network of 860 talented founders in various verticals, at various stages, and coming from different walks of life—all of whom are willing to lend a hand or an ear just because you’re a part of AppWorks
Match with mentors that have decades of startup and successful scaling / exit experiences who would commit to a long-term mentor-mentee relationship and guide you along the way
Connect with world-class investors interested in cutting-edge technologies, while honing your ability to identify complementary and supportive shareholders
Learn fundamental skills such as sourcing the right talent, ins and outs of fundraising, and strengthening relationships with suppliers and channel partners
Stay abreast on the latest trends in the ever-changing worlds of AI & blockchain, while keeping track of competitive headwinds and new market entrants
Up to US$ 300K worth of free cloud and SaaS credits offered by our partners, including AWS, GCP, FB, Azure, in addition to free use of AppWorks Accelerator coworking, meeting, and event spaces

The AppWorks Network is really powerful. Within days of joining the Accelerator, I was already connected to all the e-commerce platforms I could work with. It would have taken me months if I were to do it alone.

JOEL LEONG, CO-FOUNDER, SHOPBACK (AW#13)

Application Timeline

Calling Aspiring AI & Blockchain Startup Founders
Apply to AppWorks Accelerator #18 NOW!

Early Mover
Application

NOW to OCT-29, 2018 11:59pm (Taipei Time)

Final Round
Application

OCT-30 to JAN-2, 2019 11:59pm (Taipei Time)

Interview Invitations &
Admissions Offers

Send out on a rolling basis

AppWorks #18
Official Kick-off

MAR-8, 2019

State of The AppWorks Network

300

STARTUPS

860

FOUNDERS

7,209

EMPLOYEES

$490M

TOTAL RAISE

$1.7B

TOTAL VALUATION

$1.9B

ANNUAL REVENUES

A Community to Help Solve Problems, Cross-Promote, and Connect with Investors & Business Partners

Once you join AppWorks, you are immediately connected to our extraordinary alumni network of 860 founders. Within the AppWorks Ecosystem, you’ll have the opportunity to meet talented AI startup founders including Shawn Guan of Umbo CV (AW#9), KS Mooi of SkyRec (AW#11), Tammy Yang of DT42 (AW#13), Nelson Chu of High5 (AW#14), and Adms Chung of Mobagel (AW#16); as well as prominent blockchain startup founders including Bryan Cheng of Wagecan (AW#5), Titan Cheng of BitoEX (AW#6), Kevin Hoo of blockcast.it (AW#14) and David Tang of Standard Kepler (AW#14). Together, you’ll find the community extremely powerful when:

You run into problems and need advice from those who have done similar things
You need help with product promotions
You want to check references on an investor or a potential business partner
You need an intro to someone
You want to engage with the AI and Blockchain communities and find support

In terms of size, AppWorks is the largest community of its kind in Asia. But more importantly, our culture of “paying-it-forward” and helping each other out is the real reason why it’s so valuable.

AppWorks Accelerator is the engine of distributive technologies. Upon joining the community, I saw first-hand the impact that AppWorks was making across the region. Every 6 months, enterprises from all industries look forward to meeting new teams so they can learn and implement innovative technologies into their organizations. Teams with innovative idea and product can benefit so much from AppWorks Accelerator.

NELSON CHU, FOUNDER, HIGH5 (AW#14)

Your Mentors =

Successful Founders

AppWorks provides incredibly supportive mentorship to startup founders. All their partners and staff maintain tight-knit relations startups that went through the accelerator program and can provide advice and guidance specific to the problems (e.g. finance, HR, PR, fundraising) faced by startups.

KEVIN CHAN, FOUNDER / CEO, TAXIGO (AW#11)

Connect with the Right Coach, Acquire the Right Mindset, Become the Best Founder You Can Be

Steven Ho, Founder of 91APP whose previous startups were successfully exited to eBay and Yahoo!; Ming Chen, Founder of KKday who successfully completed 2 IPOs and 1 M&A exits earlier; Jerry Kuo of Kuo Brothers (創業家兄弟) and Ben Tseng of Net Publishing (隆中網絡) all started and ran their companies all the way to IPO; Together with Mike Jiang of GameSofa, Nathan Chiu of cacaFly, John Fan of Cardinal Blue, as well as 60+ other successful startup founders are all AppWorks Mentors that you can connect and build a lifelong coaching relationship with.

Your Next Fundraising

Round, Led by AppWorks

As founders who are always out there grinding and battling, there is nothing more important when your investors are respectful and supportive of your decisions. AppWorks is hyper active in providing support and connections for the startups while instill great confidence in founders even during the toughest periods of the startup life cycle.

SHAWN GUAN, FOUNDER / CEO, UMBO CV (AW#9)

ICOs, Terms, Structures, and Syndicate, Tailored to Your Needs

Venture capital is a sophisticated and complex ecosystem filled with firms specializing in different segments for various startup stages. It is also brimming with a slew of complicated terms and game rules. First-time founders often find the learning curve difficult to overcome and getting to the right investors a daunting task. That is why AppWorks is also a VC firm ourselves so we can better help you on the fundraising end. Whether it’s putting together your first round of institutional financing or launching an ICO, we’re always ready to put the money to work in our startups, with 2 funds and US$ 61 million under management and a 3rd fund of US$ 100M closing by the end of 2018. After all, who knows our startups better than us? On top of that, we can often act as the bridge between our startups and the venture capital community by leading financing rounds and putting together a syndicate tailored to your needs.