TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In the first podcast of "Startup Island Taiwan," the marketing head of Ubiik, a Taiwanese tech company playing a big role in the country's energy transition, talked about the seven-year journey of how the award-winning startup scaled up.

In 2016, Ubiik started as a telecom technology provider, with less than 20 employees, against the backdrop of sprouting connected home device demands and tons of competing standards launched to connect home devices. That is, however, challenging for a small company like Ubiik to profit.

The company was initially dedicated to the fields of industrial metering and logistics, managing to find a sweet spot in the market with its cutting-edge technology of Weightless LPWAN, among others, to be applied in the fields of maritime, security, satellite, farming, industrial automation, logistics, and weather.

Back then, there was a vast array of connectivity options to choose from that were best suited for different applications and locations. For many customers, there are applications out there that do not have a fitting solution. Ubiik discovered the pain point and came to integrate telecom technologies to create a new solution that caters to the needs of customers.

"Innovation and gut are the secret sauce of Ubiik," said Clement Dieudonne, VP of Sales and Marketing of the company. "We do not try our luck and wait for a good timing, we continue to refine our ideas and products to ensure they are market fit."

Turning point

Starting as a telecommunication technology provider, the company was seeking ways to make a bigger impact. Dieudonne recalled the partnership formation with Taipower, which was a turning point that made the company decide to change its strategy and operate as a solution provider.

In 2017, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) opened a tender and was looking for solution providers to deploy an intelligently-connected metering system, also known as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). Pioneering the development of Weightless LPWAN technology, Ubiik adapted to the changing market demand, met Taipower's rigorous requirements and won the bid in 2018 after a successful year-long roadtesting.

The Taiwanese startup beat strong rivals larger than its size and won the electricity company's second, third, fourth tenders in the following years. The cutting-edge low-power wireless technology continued to power its growth, financially.

With a new identity as an Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider, Ubiik is promoting the deployment of its patented software and devices to facilitate smart energy development and that helps fight against climate change in the course of time as a benefit of energy efficiency.

"We are not the maker of the smart grid, smart meter, PV panel, battery, and EV charger but are connecting them to support industrial energy efficiency," said Dieudonne.

"We can make more contributions as a solution provider," he added. In the partnership with Taipower, the company believes it is making a bigger impact by assisting Taipower to swiftly replace mechanical meters with smart meters to collect data wirelessly and help households to track their usage in real time.

"If you can measure, you can optimize; if you can't measure, there is no way you can optimize," he commented.

Challenges ahead for Taiwan companies

For years onward, Ubiik helped Taipower install the next generation of power meters, which are manufactured locally, in commercial and industrial buildings. With several years of experience in application and testing, the company is now the leading IoT solution provider to create telecom networks for those using smart meters.

Thanks to the strong and vibrant ecosystem of semiconductors and telecommunication, it is cheaper to manufacture devices locally, he said.

However, there are still some challenges in front of Taiwanese companies, Dieudonne said. "One is innovation, as since the 1990s many Taiwanese businesses have accumulated a lot of wealth in following what they have been told, but today the environment is so different and businesses have to step up to come up with something new to excel."

"The second thing is international marketing." He thinks the country can do more to improve its visibility in international business.

"That's what we want to do with Ubiik; everyone working here has to have forward-thinking about what they want to provide for customers rather than just waiting for the request from them ... Also, we have got a good startup story from our existing partnerships to pitch international customers."

Today, with just 85 employees, the company has established a solid customer base in Japan, India, Europe, and the United States.