In the bike-sharing industry, all companies, including top players and others following them, are under pressure, in different ways though. For ofo and Mobike, the pressure comes from some investors,pushing a merger between the two companies. For others, like Xiaoming Bike, face financial crises and even legal issues, seeing the first suit against Xiaoming Bike, alleging the company failed to repay customers’ deposit in time.
Kr-ASIA Daily is a five-minute read to brief you everything you need to know to start your day. We only choose the latest tech & startup news that is worth your time, with a focus on Southeast Asia and China.
Southeast Asia:
Malaysia: Google Cloud has collaborated with Malaysia’s software company IFCA MSC Berhad to launch a $2.4 million accelerator programme to boost Proptech in Malaysia. (e27)
Singapore: Temasek’s venture capital arm Ventex Ventures, joined the $21 million funding round of Israel-based predictive marketing startup Leadspace. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: L Catterton Asia, a consumer-focused private equity, has invested in India’s cafes and restaurants operator,Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality. (Deal Street Asia)
Thailand: Thai-listed factory and warehouse developer, TICON, has formed a JV frim with Surya Semesta Internusa Tbk (SSIA), an Indonesian property developer, to expand into South Sulawesi and South Kalimantan areas. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: Collectius, a multinational credit management service and asset management company, has acquired a Non-Performing Loan (NPL) portfolio from a leading bank in the Philippines. The deal consists of 340,000 credit cards and personal loans. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam:Thai Beverage holds almost 54 percent stake in Saigon Beer, after it emerged as the only major bidder in what had been billed as the most contested auction of Vietnam’s biggest asset sale to date. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Affinity Equity Partners, one of the largest dedicated Asian private equity firm, is acquiring U.S.-listed Laureate Education’s Malaysian assets for $180 million. (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Ofo founder Dai Wei, commented on the speculation on a potential merger between ofo and Mobike, saying completion is good as it boosts development and that he hopes investors can understand startup owners’ ambition. (Net Ease)
Tencent and JD are leading an $863 million investment in Chinese apparel platform Vipshop, intensifying the completion with Alibaba. This move comes as Tencent seeks to leverage WeChat and its online payment system to drive shopping demand. (Reuters)
New Leshi is to introduce BAT-like partners to cooperate on content distribution, according to CEO Zhang Zhao. (iFeng)
Toutiao plans to launch a feature for enterprise certification, allowing enterprise better set themselves up to reach target customers. (Toutiao)
China saw the first suit against a bike-sharing company, as the Consumer Association of Guangdong province alleged Xiaoming Bike failed to repay customers’ deposit in time and inappropriately manage customers’ account. Xiaoming Bike replied to the allegation that shareholders are working on the problem to overcome the current obstacles. (nbd)
Channel V China has closed its first financing round and was valued at ¥21 billion, poise for an IPO early next year. (Sohu)
China’s blockchain network solutions provider, Qulian Technology, has banked tens of thousands of yuan in Series A round. (36Kr)
IDG Capital led mobile payment solution provider Munitedpass Technology’s Series Pre-A round worths tens of thousands of yuan. (36Kr)
Qihoo 360 launched cleaning robots powered by autonomous driving technology. (36Kr)
Jack Ma-backed Hupan University’s education director Zeng Ming believes, the development in the next ten years is about IoT, AI technologies, and collaborative network. (36Kr)
IoT startup G7 Networks scores $70 million strategic investment from Bank of China and Singapore’s General Logistics Providers. (China Money Network)
China is to rein in local subsidies for electric vehicles and other new energy cars. (Bloomberg)
Sina appointed Ctrip co-founder Liang Jianzhang as its independent director. (Sina)
Huawei is planning a foray into the U.S. market, collaborating with mobile carriers to sell its smartphones, according to Yu Chengdong, president at Huawei consumer department. (Sina)
Didi plans to enter the Taiwan market and has started recruiting drivers with professional drivers’ license. (the Paper)
Didi has acquired third-party payment license from digital payment company 19 Pay. The deal has been proved by the Central Bank of China. (Ping West)
Hong Kong-based cross-border payment solution provider EMQ banks $6.5 million in a Series A round. (36Kr)
China boats 36% of the world’s unicorn companies, as the country integrates the most active system to boost creativity, according to economist Liu Yuhui. (Sina)
World:
Uber users are now able to hail rides through BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). The ride-hailing company seeks to trail Southeast Asian rivals, Go-Jek and Grab, as the BBM service, although already dead in many parts of the world. is still popular in Indonesia. (TechCrunch)
India’s online microlending platform Cash Suvidha banked $2.7 million debt financing. (VVCiRCLE)
Bitcoin frenzy lifts other cryptocurrencies such as ripple, litecoin, NEM to record highs. (Bloomberg)
Bitcoin climbs as new futures contracts that make it easy for short bets on the cryptocurrency failed to stop bitcoin’s march towards $20,000. (Bloomberg)
iPhone was set to be more expansive in India, with an average rise of 3.5% in prices, as the country raised taxes on imported gadgets. (Sina)
U.S. stock market saw a record high rise in three major indexes, namely S&P 500 by 0.5%, Nasdaq by 0.8% and DJIA by 0.6%. Apple and Google’s stake rose to an all-time high, while Vipshop surged by 39.22%, following the Tencent and JD’s investment. (iFeng)
According to Renaissance Capital’s recent report, the U.S. market has seen 160 IPOs in 2017, worth in total $35.6 billion. Chinese companies have made 15 out of the total 35 IPOs made by overseas companies. 2018 is likely to see more IPOs as many major tech companies including Dropbox are projected to get listed. (Sina)
Microsoft announced $50 million investment in the development of AI technologies to combat climate change. (Sina)