Startup accelerator and venture capital firm AppWorks has raised a total of $114 million in its Fund III, according to a report by DealStreetAsia. The round was initially set to reach roughly $100 million but the firm has decided to increase the target to its upper limit of $150 million as its team saw “a much larger funding gap” for up and coming startups in their Series A or B round of funding in Taiwan and across Southeast Asia.
Taipei-based AppWorks was founded as early as 2009. Since then, the accelerator has been giving a boost to the development of the startup ecosystem across Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region. It has invested in 395 startups and has backed 1,331 founders with a total turnover of $8.05 billion. The firm usually keeps an eye out for companies in their seed to Series C round of funding handing out investments of $200,000 to $10 million. It usually invests in 10 to 15 companies or deals each year.
AppWorks’ portfolio companies have included Carousell, Lalamove, KKDay, Dapper Labs, Dcard, Deep Sentinel, EMQ, Fabelio, and many others. Some of its more notable startups that have launched IPOs include Uber, NetPublishing, KuoBrothers, and MobiXwent. With its Fund III, AppWorks is now stocking up on marketing securities to make more investments in sectors such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, and decentralized finance. The firm looks like it is on its way to close this round by the end of the month.
The firm’s Fund III started fundraising as early as 2018. AppWorks was able to reach its initial goal of US$ 100 million with the help of its anchor investor Taiwan Mobile, and a number of its Limited Partners.
The continuation of its fundraising comes as reports have shown the shortage of growth capital for startups in Southeast Asia last 2020.
AppWorks Chairman and Partner Jamie Lin talked about the growth and needs of startups in the region: “As we started investing for the most part of 2019, we realized our pipeline was much stronger than we had expected. Many earlier-stage funds that are sub-$50 million have popped up over the past five to six years, making things easier for early-stage startups looking to raise US$ 3 to 5 million in a Series A round. But once they get to a certain point where they want to raise a US$ 10 million Series A or a US$ 20 to 30 million Series B, it becomes much, much harder.”