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Tech in 2017: Crazy, troubled and out of control?
Questions are being asked about platform power. Regulatory rules and knives are being sharpened. Politicians are eager to point the finger of blame. And with so much tech-fueled ammunition, who can blame them? Read More
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China’s Didi Chuxing raises $4B more for AI, international expansion and electric vehicles
China’s Didi Chuxing, the country’s top ride-hailing company, said today that it has raised $4 billion in new capital to support a range of new initiatives including international expansion. The company has already raised $13 billion from investors that include Alibaba, Tencent and Apple, and it said that this newest round will go towards developing its artificial intelligence… Read More
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Alibaba Cloud is opening its first data center in India
Alibaba is bringing its cloud computing business into India as it continues to expand its fast-growing business unit. The Chinese firm said today that its first data center on Indian soil will come online in January and be based out of Mumbai. The business already has clients in India, but a local presence will allow it to better service customers in the country, it added. Beyond offering… Read More
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Mobike lands investment from Line to grow its bike-sharing service in Japan
Dock-less bike rental company Mobike is teaming up with messaging app firm Line to boost its presence in Japan. Line, which is Japan’s most popular messaging app with 71 million users in the country, is making an undisclosed investment in Mobike Japan, the Chinese firm’s entity in the country. The deal will see the Mobike service integrated into the Line app the same way that it… Read More
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Uber rival Ola buys Foodpanda India to get into food deliveries
Ola, the Uber rival in India, is entering the food delivery space after it announced a deal to acquire Foodpanda’s India business from its parent company DeliveryHero. The deal will see Ola scoop up the Foodpanda India business with DeliveryHero taking an undisclosed amount of Ola stock in exchange. Undisclosed all-stock deals are usually indicative of a willingness to sell, and we… Read More
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US Government says North Korea was behind massive WannaCry cyber attack
The U.S. Government has officially blamed North Korea for WannaCry, the massive ransomware attacked that spread across the world disrupting more than 200,000 businesses from 35 countries this past May. Writing in the New York Times [link subject to a paywall], Homeland Security Advisor Thomas P. Bossert said for the first time that the North Korean regime is directly to blame for the… Read More
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WheelStreet is bringing dock-less motorbikes to India’s cities
By now the world is familiar with the rise of on-demand bicycle services, which started out with Mobike and Ofo in China, but one startup is twisting the concept slightly to bring dock-less motorbikes to the streets of India. WheelStreet, a company that graduated the Y Combinator program in the U.S. earlier this year, is pioneering the scooter push in India through a pilot service that has… Read More
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Horizons Ventures backs AI startup Fano Labs in first Hong Kong investment
Horizons Ventures, the VC firm founded by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Shing, has made a rare early-stage investment after it backed AI startup Fano Labs. Horizons has invested in the likes of Facebook, Razer, Slack, Improbable, Spotify and more, and now it is putting undisclosed money into Fano Labs, which recently graduated AI accelerator program Zeroth. This deal also marks the… Read More
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Tencent and JD.com invest $863M into e-commerce firm Vipshop to battle Alibaba
Tencent, the internet giant that recently became Asia’s first $500 billion company, is continuing its investment spree after it agreed to buy $604 million in shares of Chinese online retailer Vipshop. The deal is being made with long-time partner JD.com, which will invest $259 million into Vipshop, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That takes the total between the two to… Read More
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Australia’s Airwallex raises $6M to grow its cross-border payment business
Airwallex, an Australia-based fintech startup that helps banks and businesses handle cross-border transactions at scale, has closed a $6 million investment ahead of a planned Series B next year. The new funding comes from Square Peg — a VC firm located in Melbourne, the same city as Airwallex HQ — which joins Tencent, MasterCard, Gobi Ventures and Sequoia China as backers of… Read More
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Go-Jek buys three startups to advance its mobile payment business
Go-Jek, the company leading Uber and Grab in Southeast Asia’s largest market, has bagged a hat trick of deals to advance its mobile payment strategy. Indonesia-based Go-Jek revealed it has acquired offline payment firm Kartuku, payment gateway Midtrans and payment and lending network Mapan for undisclosed sums. The company started out in 2015 offering a ride-hailing service for… Read More
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Teabox raises $7M for its global tea-commerce business
Teabox, the company pioneered the concept of selling tea to direct to consumers online, has served up $7 million in fresh funding to grow its five-year-old business. This new infusion of capital — last tea joke, I promise — is a Series B round that takes Teabox, which has head offices in India and Singapore, to just shy of $15 million in funding to date. The round was led by… Read More
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NSI Ventures hits first close on new $125M fund for Southeast Asia
There’s been pause since Southeast Asia last welcomed fresh venture capital, but one reload is on its way after NSI Ventures, an early investor in Indonesian unicorn and Uber rival Go-Jek, announced a first close of its second fund. The target is $125 million, which represents a significant increase on its first fund of $90 million. The firm said it has pulled in $75 million of… Read More
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Uber doubles down on Indonesia after hiring its first country president
As part of its new approach to Asia, Uber has announced a first president for its business in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and the world’s fourth most populous country. Monika Rudijono will take up the role in January, joining from advertising and marketing firm Grey where she had been presidential director. She’ll report directly to Brooks Entwistle, who… Read More
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Techstars is launching its first accelerator program in Asia in partnership with Rakuten
Techstars is bringing its global accelerator program to Asia for the first time in partnership with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten and its chat app Viber. The companies will run a three-month program in Singapore starting in July, according to a joint announcement made today. The focus will be on social messaging and, in particular, technologies and startups that align with Viber, the… Read More
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Google is opening a China-based research lab focused on artificial intelligence
Google has officially announced that it is opening an AI center in Beijing, China. The confirmation comes after months of speculation fueled by a major push to hire AI talent inside the country. Google’s search engine is blocked in China, but the company still has hundreds of staff in China which work on its international services. In reference to that workforce, Alphabet chairman… Read More
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