Sequoia Capital India on its early funding in Appier, the fund’s newest exit – TechCrunch
Chih-Han Yu, chief government officer and co-founder of Appier Group Inc., proper, holds a hammer subsequent to a bell throughout an occasion marking the itemizing of the corporate on the Tokyo Inventory Alternate, on the firm’s workplace in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg through Getty Photos
Appier’s preliminary public providing on the Tokyo Inventory Alternate yesterday was a milestone not just for the corporate, but additionally Sequoia Capital India, one in every of its earliest buyers. Based in Taiwan, Appier was the fund’s first funding outdoors of India, and is now additionally the primary 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 agency to Appier, which develops AI-based advertising software program.
Earlier than shifting its focus to advertising, Appier’s founders—chief government officer Chih-Han Yu, chief working officer Winnie Lee and chief expertise officer Joe Su—labored on a startup referred to as Plaxie to develop AI-powered gaming engines. Yu and Su got here up with the thought once they had been each graduate college students at Harvard, however discovered there was little demand on the time. Anand met them in 2013, quickly after their pivot to massive information and advertising, and Sequoia Capital India invested in Appier’s Sequence A a couple of months later.
“It’s straightforward to say looking back what labored and what didn’t work. What actually stands out with out attempting to write down revisionist historical past is that this was simply an extremely sensible workforce,” mentioned Anand. “They’d most likely probably the most technical core DNA of any Sequence An organization that we’ve met in years, I might argue.” Yu holds a PhD in pc science from Harvard, Wu earned a PhD in immunology at Washington College in St. Louis and Su has a M.S. in pc science from Harvard. The corporate additionally crammed its workforce with AI and machine studying researchers from high universities in Taiwan and the USA.
On the time, Sequoia Capital “had a broad thesis that there could be adoption of AI in enterprises,” Anand mentioned. “What we believed was there have been a bunch of individuals going after that drawback, however they had been attempting to resolve enterprise issues with out essentially having the technical depth to do it.” Appier stood out as a result of they “had been swinging at it from the opposite finish, the place they’d an unlimited quantity of technical experience.”
Since Appier’s launch in 2012, extra corporations have emerged that use machine studying and large information to assist corporations automate advertising selections and create on-line campaigns. Anand mentioned one of many causes Appier, which now operates in 14 markets throughout the Asia-Pacific area, stays aggressive is its technique of cross-selling new merchandise and specializing in particular use circumstances as a substitute of constructing a common function 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 shoppers who’re most certainly to make use of them; consumer engagement platform AIQUA; and AIXON, an information science platform that makes use of AI fashions to foretell buyer actions, together with the probability of repeat purchases.
“I feel the primary factor that the corporate has spent quite a lot of time on is specializing in effectivity,” mentioned Anand. “Prospects have tons of knowledge, each exterior and first-party, that they’re processing to drive enterprise outcomes. It’s a really exhausting technical drawback. Appier begins with an answer that’s comparatively straightforward to interrupt right into a buyer, after which builds deeper and deeper options for these prospects.”
Appier’s itemizing can be noteworthy as a result of it marks the primary time an organization from Taiwan has listed in Japan since Development Micro’s IPO in 1998. Japan is one in every of Appier’s largest markets (prospects there embrace Rakuten, Toyota and Shiseido), making the Tokyo Inventory Alternate a pure match, Anand mentioned, regardless that most of Sequoia Capital India’s portfolio corporations listing in India or the USA.
The Tokyo Inventory Alternate additionally stood out due to its retail investor participation, liquidity and whole quantity. A few of Appier’s different core buyers, together with JAFCO Asia and SoftBank Group Corp., are additionally primarily based in Japan. However although it has nearly $30 billion in common buying and selling quantity, the overwhelming majority of listings are home corporations. In a latest report, Nikkei Asia cited the next company tax fee and lack of potential underwriters, particularly for smaller listings, as a possible obstacles for overseas corporations.
However Appier’s debut might prepared the ground for different Asian startups to selected the Tokyo Inventory Alternate, mentioned Anand. “Preparing for the Japanese change meant having the suitable accounting practices, the suitable reporting, an entire bunch of compliance stuff. It was a protracted course of. In some methods we had been main the cost for exterior corporations to get there, and I’m positive over time it’s going to hold getting simpler and simpler.”
