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Taiwanese Women Founders Solve Overlooked Problems but Struggle to Scale
Women entrepreneurs in Taiwan are building businesses around problems ranging from eldercare to animal-assisted services, but many remain small and face difficulties securing capital and expanding beyond the domestic market.
Nearly 60% of women business owners operate as sole proprietors and 91.6% mainly serve the domestic market, according to Taiwan's 2025 SME White Paper. Some 44% cite access to funding as their biggest business challenge. The issue was in focus as Standard Chartered named the winners of its fourth Women Entrepreneurship Awards in Taipei held recently.
Silver Gate, a technology platform integrating meal delivery and care services for elderly people, won first place and NT600,000. Paw for Good, a therapy dog training team, took second with NT400,000, while Cocoon, which uses AI and body-shape data to improve lingerie fitting, placed third and received NT$300,000.
The program, run with the Garden of Hope Foundation and Impact Hub Taipei, has supported nearly 120 women-led teams since 2023 and distributed NT$7.5 million in prize funding. Organizers said participating businesses have created more than 400 jobs.
From impact to business
Standard Chartered Taiwan Chief Financial Officer Toak Cheng Toh said businesses seeking social impact still need clear business models, sound resource management and the ability to continuously create value.
She said business growth and social impact need to reinforce each other for that impact to become sustainable and contribute to long-term competitiveness.
Other judges echoed the challenge of turning an identified social need into a sustainable business. AAMA Taipei Cradle Program CEO Chen Ying-Tzu said women entrepreneurs often bring insight into overlooked social problems, but identifying a need is only the beginning. Founders still need to develop businesses capable of addressing those problems over time.
Beyond meal delivery
For first-place winner Shih-Shan Sun of Silver Gate, that question became personal. Its founder told the audience that her grandmother had received the company's meal deliveries for about three years. When her swallowing ability later deteriorated, the family did not know what additional services were available.
Her grandmother, who lived in a remote part of Changhua County, eventually entered a care facility and was placed on a feeding tube. The experience led the founder to reconsider what role Silver Gate could play beyond delivering food.
The company now integrates meal delivery, family care records, senior-friendly food products and digital management for long-term-care meal services. The founder said regular contact through meal delivery could also help identify other needs and connect elderly people with care earlier.
She also pointed to the gender dimension of eldercare, saying women account for around 90% of people arranging meal services for relatives through the platform, often while balancing work and responsibility for aging family members.
From founders to jobs
The program is also extending its focus beyond starting businesses.
A new initiative this year will connect previous women entrepreneurs with employment programs for women who have experienced violence through the Garden of Hope Foundation's networks in New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Hualien.
Garden of Hope Deputy CEO Wang Shu-Fen said the approach is intended to turn the expertise and experience accumulated by women entrepreneurs into opportunities for other women to develop skills, return to work, and move toward economic independence.
The shift reflects a broader goal for the program: moving from helping women build businesses to enabling those businesses to create opportunities for others.
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