AppWorks Demo Day #30 Launches
AppWorks Demo Day #30 and Wistron Demo Day #8 took place on June 17, featuring 24 startup teams from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, presenting topics that included space technology, Web3, and the increasingly prominent AI.
As AppWorks Accelerator celebrates its 15th anniversary, Chairman and Partner Lin Zhi-Chen reflected on the founding background of AppWorks, pointing out that both Taiwan and the global startup environment were at a low point at the time, having experienced the 9/11 attacks, SARS, and the financial crisis of 2007-2008, which resulted in a sluggish overall venture capital and entrepreneurial atmosphere. He decided to return to Taiwan from the United States to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, invigorating Taiwan’s economy and providing more upward mobility opportunities for the youth.
In the midst of this economic winter, he founded AppWorks, recruiting 11 startup teams for the first cohort, and holding the inaugural Demo Day in 2010, attracting over 200 venture capitalists and industry professionals. This event allowed the teams to feel external validation and hope for the first time.
Looking back over the past 15 years, AppWorks has supported over 620 active startups and more than 2,000 entrepreneurs. He described the entrepreneurial ecosystem as akin to a rainforest, gradually thriving from the post-financial crisis recession and now moving towards a more mature phase.
Among the teams participating in AppWorks #30 today, as many as 33% are serial entrepreneurs, and 18% of the startups have achieved the milestone of over one million dollars in annual revenue, demonstrating the strength and commercial viability of this cohort of entrepreneurs.
Chairman and Partner of AppWorks, Lin Zhi-Chen.
Which WEB3 Teams Are Worth Noticing?
Deep Tech Innovation Funding Platform: Merito
Merito is an innovative funding platform focused on deep tech projects. Founder Brandon Possin stated that many significant technologies capable of transforming lives, such as cancer therapies, semiconductors, and nuclear fusion, often begin in university labs or small startups, yet 92% ultimately fail to reach the market, primarily due to excessive scrutiny within traditional funding systems.
To address the funding bottleneck, Merito developed “Project Tokens” as a new fundraising mechanism. This tokenization method bypasses the traditional venture capital selection processes, allowing investors to openly participate in funding early-stage research and development projects. Merito converts standard research contracts into tokens, meaning that holding these tokens equates to funding the R&D of those projects and receiving a portion of the authorized revenue in return.
Due to geopolitical factors, some venture capitalists are reluctant to invest in Taiwan, but Project Tokens break down geographical barriers, providing a new channel for funding to enter Taiwan’s deep tech sector. Merito disclosed that there is currently a biotech startup project from Taiwan being promoted on their platform.
Last year, the total fundraising amount for IT projects on the platform reached $360,000, and this year it has already reached $2.3 million. Brandon Possin noted that Merito continues to receive project applications from top universities in Japan.
Emotional Memory Preservation Platform: Sentiment
Sentimint focuses on the preservation of emotional memories, combining blockchain and AI technologies to help users permanently save and re-experience precious memories. Founder Yuri Choi cited the emotional memory of receiving her mother’s earrings as a childhood example, pointing out that our memories often get lost amidst thousands of smartphone photos or cloud storage and naturally fade over time. Sentimint’s mission is to combat this memory loss by meaningfully preserving and re-experiencing emotions.
Sentimint’s products consist of two core components: a blockchain memory platform and memory wearables. The memory storage platform turns emotional memories into digital assets, such as a video or photo, and permanently saves them. These memories are not merely “files”; the system uses AI to tag the emotional content, such as “touching, love, longing,” etc.
Moreover, this data is encrypted via blockchain, accessible only to you or those you authorize. Sentimint’s memory wearables, such as bracelets and necklaces, are equipped with private keys that can unlock the memories you store on the platform. When scanned with a smartphone or sensing device, these wearables can immediately evoke fragments of memories.
In just 30 days, Sentimint has attracted over 12,000 users and stored more than 50,000 memories. Yuri Choi stated that Sentimint will launch from South Korea and aims to penetrate industries such as weddings, pets, jewelry, and commemorative products, diving deeper into the emotional commerce market.
AI Agent Operating Protocol: Omo Protocol
Omo Protocol creates AI gateway tools to help ordinary users seamlessly enter the decentralized finance ecosystem. The primary product currently under development is Neko, a consumer-facing AI agent user interface tool that simplifies the process for users to direct funds into the decentralized trading platform Hyperliquid and participate in its trading and yield products.
Previously, while users may have been interested in entering Hyperliquid, they were deterred by high entry barriers and complex operations. Omo’s mission is to solve this entry challenge. Neko utilizes a multi-agent system similar to Gemini or Anthropic to assist users in completing complex processes.
This design significantly enhances investment efficiency. According to the team’s tests, user returns can increase by 2 to 2.5 times. Although the product has not yet fully launched, Omo Protocol founder Ali Hassan revealed that over 1,000 users are already on the reservation waiting list.
Cross-Chain Financial Infrastructure Platform: Yei Finance
Yei Finance, from Taiwan, is a blockchain financial infrastructure platform. Founder Austin Chien pointed out that a core dilemma has emerged in blockchain development: the more chains there are, the more dispersed the capital becomes. New public chains can only attract capital inflow by continually offering subsidies and rewards, creating a vicious cycle of “relying on subsidies to sustain liquidity.”
Yei Finance allows newly launched blockchains to avoid building financial infrastructure from scratch. By integrating with Yei Finance, chains can quickly tap into mainstream capital flows in just seven days, gaining complete functionalities including bridging, trading, and lending, enabling users to immediately operate and trade assets on that chain.
Austin stated that their solution can increase deployment speed by ten times and user returns by five times. Although the platform has been established for less than a year, it has already accumulated $500 million in user deposits and generated $4.8 million in revenue.