Taiwan will start facilitating crowdfunding for entrepreneurs trying to start companies in the same way that Kickstarter helps product inventors, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said on Wednesday.
“Startups are the fruits of innovation,” Duh said in an interview in Taipei. “They benefit our economy and generate employment opportunities.”
The nation is seeking to attract innovative projects and people from around the world as part of an effort to revive industries, including textiles and technology, battered by lower-cost production in China.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Taiwanese companies must innovate and invest in research and development to compete, said Duh, who was appointed in January.
The online platforms, designed to allow the public to buy stakes in small firms, are to be operated by local brokerages and regulated by the Financial Supervisory Commission.
The commission said in a Web cast late on Wednesday that only companies with NT$30 million (US$954,000) or less will be allowed to sign up.
The program is scheduled to start by May, Duh said.
Crowdfunding, which allows companies and people to raise money via online pitches, is a small, growing alternative to traditional finance.
Kickstarter is a New York-based Web site started in 2009 on which individuals can ask the public for funding for their creative projects. To date, US$1.6 billion has been pledged toward 79,000 projects, according to its Web site.
The government and venture capital funds plan to jointly raise more than NT$22.2 billion toward investing in Taiwan and Silicon Valley startups, according to a council statement this week.
These new companies can work with and help drive innovation in Taiwan’s existing industries, such as technology hardware, Duh said.
“We cannot compete with China on volume or mass production,” Duh said, adding that corporate profits should instead come from intangible resources such as research and development.
“We want to move the investment upstream,” he said.
Duh said that while China’s large market is attractive to entrepreneurs, he would not recommend it for young innovators.
“Startups are high risk in the beginning, and you are better off in a transparent environment,” Duh said. “A lot of things are not transparent in China, including their laws.”
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) announced this week a NT$10 billion fund to aid Taiwanese entrepreneurship, even after the company was asked sell or close its local operations by August for failing to apply for permission to set up in Taiwan as a Chinese company.
Ma said on Tuesday that his company complied with local regulations when it entered the nation.
“Any funding that complies with our rules is of course welcome here,” Duh said yesterday. “Taiwan also supports entrepreneurship.”
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