Chih-Han Yu, chief govt officer and co-founder of Appier Group Inc., proper, holds a hammer subsequent to a bell throughout an occasion marking the itemizing of the firm on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, at the firm’s workplace in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg through Getty Images
Appier’s initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday was a milestone not just for the firm, but in addition Sequoia Capital India, considered one of its earliest traders. Founded in Taiwan, Appier was the fund’s first investment outdoors of India, and is now additionally the first firm in its portfolio outdoors of India to go public. In an interview with TechCrunch, Sequoia Capital managing director Abheek Anand talked about what drew the firm to Appier, which develops AI-based advertising and marketing software program.
Before shifting its focus to advertising and marketing, Appier’s founders—chief govt officer Chih-Han Yu, chief working officer Winnie Lee and chief know-how officer Joe Su—worked on a startup called Plaxie to develop AI-powered gaming engines. Yu and Su got here up with the concept once they had been each graduate college students at Harvard, however discovered there was little demand at the time. Anand met them in 2013, quickly after their pivot to large information and advertising and marketing, and Sequoia Capital India invested in Appier’s Series A a couple of months later.
“It’s easy to say in retrospect what worked and what didn’t work. What really stands out without trying to write revisionist history is that this was just an incredibly smart team,” stated Anand. “They had probably the most technical core DNA of any Series A company that we’ve met in years, I would argue.” Yu holds a PhD in laptop science from Harvard, Wu earned a PhD in immunology at Washington University in St. Louis and Su has a M.S. in laptop science from Harvard. The firm additionally stuffed its workforce with AI and machine studying researchers from prime universities in Taiwan and the United States.
At the time, Sequoia Capital “had a broad thesis that there would be adoption of AI in enterprises,” Anand stated. “What we believed was there were a bunch of people going after that problem, but they were trying to solve business problems without necessarily having the technical depth to do it.” Appier stood out as a result of they “were swinging at it from the other end, where they had an enormous amount of technical expertise.”
Since Appier’s launch in 2012, extra corporations have emerged that use machine studying and massive information to assist corporations automate advertising and marketing choices and create on-line campaigns. Anand stated considered one of the causes Appier, which now operates in 14 markets throughout the Asia-Pacific area, stays aggressive is its technique of cross-selling new merchandise and focusing on particular use instances as an alternative of constructing a common goal platform.
Appier’s core product is a cross-platform promoting engine referred to as CrossX that focuses on consumer acquisition. Then it has merchandise that tackle different elements of their prospects’ worth chain: AiDeal to assist corporations ship coupons to the prospects who’re almost certainly to make use of them; consumer engagement platform AIQUA; and AIXON, a knowledge science platform that makes use of AI fashions to foretell buyer actions, together with the chance of repeat purchases.
“I think the number one thing that the company has spent a lot of time on is focusing on efficiency,” stated Anand. “Customers have tons of data, both external and first-party, that they’re processing to drive business outcomes. It’s a very hard technical problem. Appier starts with a solution that is relatively easy to break into a customer, and then builds deeper and deeper solutions for those customers.”
Appier’s itemizing can be noteworthy as a result of it marks the first time an organization from Taiwan has listed in Japan since Trend Micro’s IPO in 1998. Japan is considered one of Appier’s largest markets (prospects there embody Rakuten, Toyota and Shiseido), making the Tokyo Stock Exchange a pure match, Anand stated, though most of Sequoia Capital India’s portfolio corporations record in India or the United States.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange additionally stood out due to its retail investor participation, liquidity and complete quantity. Some of Appier’s different core traders, together with JAFCO Asia and SoftBank Group Corp., are additionally based mostly in Japan. But although it has nearly $30 billion in common buying and selling quantity, the overwhelming majority of listings are home corporations. In a recent report, Nikkei Asia cited the next company tax charge and lack of potential underwriters, particularly for smaller listings, as a possible obstacles for overseas corporations.
But Appier’s debut might lead the method for different Asian startups to selected the Tokyo Stock Exchange, stated Anand. “Getting ready for the Japanese exchange meant having the right accounting practices, the right reporting, a whole bunch of compliance stuff. It was a long process. In some ways we were leading the charge for external companies to get there, and I’m sure over time it will keep getting easier and easier.”