Taiwan’s Mighty Net Gears Up for Japan, Building Asia-Pacific Hardware Hub

Ray Tai, CEO of Mighty Net, a Taiwan-based hardware accelerator, is steadily preparing for a full-scale expansion into the Japanese market. The company’s parent organization is Might Electronic, a mid-sized EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) company established in Hsinchu County, Taiwan, in 1986. Mighty Net has carved out a unique position by leveraging its parent company’s 38 years of manufacturing experience.

Behind the company’s planned 2026 expansion into Japan lies Tai’s grand vision of building a deep tech hub across the entire Asia-Pacific region. Since its launch in 2019, the Mighty Net Innovation Express accelerator program has supported over 150 startups, serving as a cornerstone of Taiwan’s hardware startup ecosystem.

Unique Accelerator Model

Ray Tai’s career trajectory mirrors the development history of Taiwan’s manufacturing industry. He began his career as an engineering assistant at Might Electronic in 2004, then served as a project manager from 2005, handling new customer development and customer relationship management. From 2008 to 2011, he worked at optical equipment manufacturer Asia Optical, managing ODM business for GE-brand digital cameras targeting North American, South American, and Japanese markets.

Back in 2005, during the early days of the IoT industry, our team had no understanding of what IoT was or what impact it would have. We started receiving inquiries from potential customers in IoT-related industries, forcing us to learn and grow together with them to keep pace. (Tai)

The turning point came in October 2011, when he returned to Might Electronic as Vice President after his stint at Asia Optical. At that time, startups excelled at software development but had shallow understanding of hardware development processes, leading to frequent issues with incomplete product specifications and design data that could result in production shutdowns and massive losses.

That’s when we built the Joint Design collaborative process, creating a system to smoothly manage the entire manufacturing and production process. (Tai)

This experience became the foundation for the Mighty Net Innovation Express accelerator, which officially launched in 2019.

Key Components and Features of Joint Design

While other hardware accelerators can only help startups find hardware manufacturing resources, we ourselves are the hardware manufacturers. We have four manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and China, with 30 years of EMS experience. (Tai)

The company has established a Smart Factory PoC (Proof of Concept) testing environment at its headquarters in Xinfeng Township, Hsinchu County. This facility enables real-world testing of AIoT applications, network management and access control systems, AI defect detection, production ergonomics analysis, and air quality monitoring.

The 16-year partnership with Ubiquiti also forms a core part of Tai’s support philosophy. Ubiquiti was a small American startup when Might Electronic began collaborating with them in 2005, but it went public on NASDAQ in 2011 and has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

Through collaboration with hardware startups, we can build mutually beneficial relationships. Startups gain technical support and product validation opportunities, while we expand our leadership in new markets. (Tai)

Taiwan-Japan Complementarity

In May 2025, Tai co-hosted TAIWAN INNOVATION NIGHT 2025 at Tokyo’s JETRO Innovation Garden. This event, themed “Shaping the Future with AI and Digital Transformation (DX),” brought together representatives from Salesforce, Fujitsu Ventures, JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization), and AWS (Amazon Web Services), with approximately 200 innovation partners in attendance.

At TAIWAN INNOVATION NIGHT, we could feel the strong interest in collaboration between Taiwanese startups and Japanese companies. Our expansion into the Japanese market is not merely business expansion—it’s a crucial element in building a deep tech ecosystem across the Asia-Pacific region. (Tai)

Mighty Net is currently considering establishing a Tokyo office in 2026. Deepening existing partnerships is also a key element, with plans to expand business operations building on existing collaborative relationships with Asahi Kasei and Kyocera.

Japanese companies maintain extremely high quality standards and detailed technical specifications. This commitment to quality will create excellent synergy with Taiwan’s precision manufacturing capabilities. (Tai)

Regarding the complementarity between Japan and Taiwan in the AI-DX era, Tai has a clear vision:

Japan excels in deep, narrow specialization—vertical strengths. Meanwhile, we at Mighty Net possess broad supply chain integration capabilities—horizontal strengths. The synergy from this combination holds great promise. While the advanced technical capabilities and quality management expertise of Japanese companies are extremely valuable for startups across the Asia-Pacific region, the agility and innovation of startups can significantly contribute to Japanese companies’ new market development. (Tai)

Tai identifies key technology areas for focus in the Japanese market: AIoT (AI + IoT), smart sensing and monitoring, automation and robotics, MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems), and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) related technologies.

To increase the probability of success, the company emphasizes collaboration with local partners. As a marketing strategy, they plan three consecutive years of participation in NEPCON Japan to establish presence in the smart manufacturing sector. After establishing a local subsidiary with Tokyo as headquarters, they envision regional expansion to Osaka, Kumamoto, and Fukuoka.

Long-term Investment Philosophy

Our investment approach prioritizes long-term relationship building over short-term profits. We position this as strategic investment in future potential customers, based on our 16-year success story with Ubiquiti (2005 collaboration start → 2011 IPO → now a multi-billion-dollar company). (Tai)

The technology learning model also serves as an important source of value creation. As a concrete example, through collaboration with Ubiquiti’s Wi-Fi technology, they were able to develop IoT solutions from the conventional few-meter communication range to proprietary systems capable of multi-kilometer long-range communication.

What matters is quality, not quantity. We intend to select the best talent under the best conditions. (Tai)

Mighty Net’s global strategy already spans over 13 countries, covering Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Israel, Europe, and North America. Among these, they adopt a strategy of concentrated efforts in three priority markets: Japan, Singapore, and North America.

We highly value Japan’s potential as a hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan’s market alone has limitations. It’s important to envision the entire Asia-Pacific region from the start and build an ecosystem that combines each country’s strengths (Tai)

In Singapore, they have collaborative relationships with startups including UnaBiz, the Asia-Pacific regional operator of the Sigfox IoT network, and uHoo, an indoor air quality monitoring device manufacturer.

Expectations for Japanese Companies

Japanese companies possess world-class technical capabilities in specific fields and maintain world-class manufacturing processes in terms of reliability and precision. They have overwhelming advantages in advanced materials and deep tech fields, and we’re particularly noting the presence of Japanese semiconductor-related companies seeking collaboration with TSMC and MediaTek. (Tai)

However, he also recognizes challenges specific to the Japanese market. Despite possessing excellent technical capabilities, there are challenges in commercialization and business development. While excelling at optimization in individual fields, there tends to be weakness in overall optimization and supply chain collaboration.

I want to convey to Japanese hardware startups the importance of “design with manufacturing in mind from the beginning.” Even with brilliant ideas, market expansion becomes difficult without design that considers manufacturing feasibility. We want to leverage our 38 years of manufacturing experience to support development from prototype stage with mass production in mind.

We at Mighty Net want to serve as a bridge between Taiwan and Japan, contributing to new value creation by combining both countries’ strengths. The world is certainly at a turning point right now. Since no winner has been determined yet, there’s no need to give up. Rather, everyone has opportunities to challenge. Why don’t we all take on discontinuous challenges together, not just extensions of what we’ve done before? (Tai)

Mighty Net has embodied the fusion of manufacturing and innovation at its factory in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Ray Tai’s vision for Japanese market expansion goes beyond mere business expansion, aiming to revolutionize the deep tech ecosystem across the entire Asia-Pacific region.

With the Tokyo office opening planned for 2026, new possibilities are about to unfold for Japan’s manufacturing industry and startup ecosystem. The fusion of Taiwan’s manufacturing experience with Japan’s technological innovation capabilities—the chemical reaction this creates and its impact on next-generation innovation development will be closely watched.