Taiwanese startup accelerator AppWorks has reached a $165-million final close for its fourth venture fund, almost $200 million lower than its original target.
A global capital markets correction and a broader venture recalibration, triggered by the US Fed’s earlier rate hikes, have led the firm to reassess its initial $360-million fund corpus, according to a statement.
This is a size that “enables disciplined deployment into high-conviction opportunities”, AppWorks said.
The final close brings the total funds raised by the firm to $386 million.
Fund IV, which was launched in 2022, has drawn support from new limited partners (LPs), including three sovereign funds: Taiwan’s National Development Fund, Malaysia’s Jelawang Capital, and Korea Venture Investment Corporation. Other LPs include corporates and institutional investors such as Fubon Life, Taiwan Mobile, Wistron, Phison, and E Ink.
“Now with the support of sovereign partners and capital networks, AppWorks bridges Taiwan’s deep tech and manufacturing strengths, Malaysia’s multilingual and commercially savvy founders, and Korea’s frontier consumer technologies with cross-border commercialisation and capital access,” the company said.
AppWorks revealed that its 2014 vintage Fund II has delivered a 1.9x DPI, placing it among the top-quartile global venture funds.
Calling itself a “founder ecosystem”, AppWorks has partnered with almost 2,900 entrepreneurs and 653 active startups since its founding in 2009. In 2017, the firm turned its focus on AI and Web3, with 128 active AI startups and 146 live Web3 startups and projects to date.
Its accelerator has also been expanding its regional reach, with around 70% of founders in each of the recent 14 cohorts coming from outside Taiwan.
Having partnered with corporate LPs, AppWorks continues to leverage that network to create a regional venture flywheel. For example, Taiwan Mobile has worked with USPACE, a startup in its 18th accelerator batch, to launch EV-charging service MyCharge, enabling USPACE’s cross-border expansion into Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand.
