Taiwanese Innovators: CardinalRain

CardinalRain Taiwan is a startup powerhouse, nurturing hundreds to reach valuations exceeding US$100 million. Partnering with FCC Partners, they connect startups to global capital, partners, and cutting-edge ideas. Their vast network in Taiwan bridges the gap between startups and essential resources. They offer unparalleled resources and systematic plans for startup success. With global ambition, CardinalRain aims to propel Taiwanese startups onto the international stage. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about CardinalRain with its President and CEO, Julian Su.

Who is Mr. Julian Su and what is his career like? What specifically drew you to working with startups in Taiwan's incubation ecosystem?

I started my career after graduate school when I was working as a management consultant. After that, I went into venture capital and private equity. So far, I’ve had more than 20 years of experience in venture capital and private equity in the Greater China Region.

During the early days of my career, I was focusing on investing in late-stage and post-IPO companies. Four years ago I started to assume the CEO of CardinalRain and pay more attention to early stage startups. My company, FCC Partners, which is the leading venture capital firm and investment bank in Greater China, started a new initiative towards startups. We have been in the Taiwanese startup ecosystem since 2018. Now I am managing two companies in our group: one is the venture capital firm, the other is the incubation arm of CardinalRain. 

I’ve seen a big change in Taiwan’s startup ecosystem. Since 2018. CardinalRain started to introduce the Amazon Web Services incubation program from Seattle to Taiwan. Since then, we have started to connect international businesses abroad to Taiwan’s ecosystem. We started to learn more about our startup ecosystem and have been trying to bring more global resources to Taiwan.

What is CardinalRain and what makes it unique from its other competitors in the country and within the region? 

CardinalRain is the subsidiary of our mother company, FCC Partners, and was established in 2018. Our mission was to bring the best joint-innovation programs from the United States to Taiwan. This was a big success. We ran the AWS program for 3 years, from 2018-2021. It’s the first international program combined with a big international company. After this, we started to work closely with government sectors, especially the New Taipei City government and the Taoyuan government, which are the two largest cities in Taiwan. We worked with them to try and build the incubators for each city. For now, we are managing two incubators in North Taiwan. Both are very famous in these cities. Globalization is definitely our priority and we see Southeast Asia is the most promising market  for Taiwan Startups in the coming years. 

What are some of the biggest challenges you see facing startups in Taiwan's current market? How does CardinalRain address these challenges?

Taiwan has many incubation centers now. However, I think the most addressing challenge is still globalization. Taiwan is a small country and the domestic market is not big enough for a startup to grow. As a result, we always encourage our startups to go global. An increasing number of Taiwanese startups are willing to go to Southeast Asia because the market potential is great. However, the problem is which country they want to go to. Besides Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia are among their top choices.

CaridnalRain also works closely with incubator partners like Techshake or other government and business sectors in Southeast Asian countries to help Taiwanese startups enter their respective markets. Our mission and long term strategy in CardinalRain is to work more closely and build more connections with Southeast Asian partners, making them our priority.

CardinalRain has seen a significant number of successful startups. Can you share an example of a company you helped incubate and the strategy behind its success?

Out of all the successful startups, one stood out namely: Saviah Technologies in Taiwan. In Taiwanese, this means ‘Mountain Jade’. This is the highest mountain in Taiwan. Founder of the company Saviah is JC Chen, Dean of College of Computer Science in NYCU. The company  develops the best 5G telecom core network software in the world. Its technology is one of a kind and very few companies can do this globally.

We not only invested one million USD in the company, but we also helped the company enter the Japanese market. We also helped them develop within the Taiwanese market, to help them get more business. For any startup, capital and new business opportunities are essential. We worked very hard to connect them with overseas business opportunities.

Looking ahead, how do you see CardinalRain evolving its services or focus areas to further empower Taiwanese startups on the global stage?

Incubators in Taiwan are more familiar with the US and Japan. However, in the next 3-5 years, Southeast Asia will definitely be the new hub to Taiwan startups. We are aggressively trying to build our relationships with Southeast Asian partners and resources. Right now, we have very strong connections in Singapore and Vietnam, but we do want to go beyond this and establish more relationships in Southeast Asia.

Julian Su is the President and CEO of CardinalRain. He is responsible for external representation and strategic partnerships and internal operations and execution of the company’s mission among many others. Julian is essential in spearheading the day-to-day tasks of CardinalRain, to ultimately achieve their mission and vision. As seen in him, Julian firmly believes in Taiwan’s potential in becoming the next hub for startups in the region. 

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with CardinalRain.