Editor’s note:
KrASIA 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:
Singapore: Electrify, a Singaporean startup that allows consumers to compare prices before buying electricity via its marketplace, has raised $30 million in funding via token sale, boosting its efforts to make electrical energy more accessible and affordable in the region. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Language-learning mobile application ELSA it has secured a Pre-A round of $3.2 million led by Monk’s Hill Ventures for talent acquisition and technology development. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Singapore-based startup RateX has raised S$3 million (US$2.3 million) in a pre-series A funding round participated by Indonesia’s Alpha JWC Ventures and Insignia Venture Partners, which is former Sequoia venture partner Yinglan Tan’s new VC fund. (e27)
Singapore: Australian startup Airtasker co-founder Jonathan Lui’s new venture – property discovery and management app Soho – has raised $1.29 million (SGD1.71 million) bagging an investment led by Bridgelane Capital. The latest round of funds will be used to accelerate product development and more than double the team at their Singapore headquarters, Soho said in an announcement on Wednesday. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesia: Private equity firms including Warburg Pincus are vying with suitors across Asia for control of a TPG-backed Indonesian consumer finance company, people with knowledge of the matter said. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: VinaCapital’s flagship fund, Vietnam Opportunity Fund (VOF) has been included as a constituent in the FTSE 250 Index, effective from the start of trading on 5 March 2018. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: Vietnam-focused group of investment funds Dragon Capital has sold 500,000 shares of listed Vietnamese jewelerPhu Nhuan Jewelry (PNJ), according to a report released by Ho Chi Chi Minh City Stock Exchange. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Cradle Seed Ventures (CSV), the venture capital arm of Malaysia’s early-stage financier Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, is in the midst of raising its second fund. (e27)
China:
Nasdaq-listed live-streaming company YY.Inc revealed in its quarterly financial report that the Chinese company seeks to list its game streaming unit Huya (虎牙直播) in the US. The Twitch-like Huya plans to raise over USD 200 million this year to support its expansion in the sector with cut-throat competition. (KrASIA)
Qualcomm Inc. is in talks to settle a dispute withHuawei Technologies Co., which has been withholding a hefty stream of royalty payments from the chip maker, according to people familiar with the matter. (WSJ)
Rumour has it that Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial has started its fundraising of pre-IPO and is likely to be valued at over USD 100 billion. Ant Financial responded that they won’t comment on the market rumor. (Tech.iFeng)
China’s largest news aggregator Toutiao is reportedly leading a USD 200 million round of investment in online homework platform 17Zuoye.com which is valued at around USD 1 billion. (36Kr)
Toutiao’s subsidiary short video streaming app Douyin stands at #1 most downloaded app in Apple App Store for continuous 16 days. (36Kr)
Didi Chuxing rolled out in low profile two apps for its food delivery service, respectively for riders and restaurant owners. (The Beijing News)
China issued a report on the country’s food delivery industry, stating over 40% of netizens uses online food delivery services. Meituan-Dianping has 250 million users and holds 62% of the total market share. Its over 500k riders delivery meals in 1300 cities, handling over 18 million orders a day. (EEO)
Tencent founder and CEO Pony Ma: Games generated less than 50% of Tencent’s total revenue and the percentage is decreasing. Instead, social networking and advertisement have bigger potential for growth. Tencent also mulls opportunities in short video- and live streaming-based social networking platform. (China Daily’s Weibo Account)
Tencent founder and CEO Pony Ma said despite the competition between Tencent and Alibaba, the two tech giants are partners in China’s environmental protection. (STCN)
Social networking platform Momo reports USD 384 million in revenue in Q4 2017, up 57% compared with the same period in 2016. Its net profit in Q4 stands at USD 110 million. (Tech.Sina)
DU Jun, founder of China’s biggest bitcoin exchange Huobi.com, replied to the allegation that there is a lack of judgment in the blockchain space as he is also the founder of Node Capital and Jinse which are respectively blockchain-focused VC and media, saying he is terrified. (Tech.QQ)
LI Kaifu, founder of Sinnovation, said he has quit all blockchain-focused WeChat group. (36Kr)
Data research institute Cheetah Lab issued a report on the bike-sharing industry, saying the market is likely to reach RMB 306 million by 2019 and overseas markets have huge potential for growth. (China News)
Samsung seeks to raise its market share in China with its smartphone S9. The company claimed it has been partnering with Chinese tech giants including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Mobike, and JD.com. (Tech.iFeng)
WeChat, the largest Chinese mobile messaging app, just crossed a milestone of 1 billion monthly active users in the past Chinese Lunar New Year, said Tencent’s founder and CEO Pony Ma. (KrASIA)
The Chinese owner of House of Fraser plans to sell its majority stake in the troubled British department-store chain, adding to the upheaval on the U.K.’s shopping streets. Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co. will sell its 51 percent holding to a tourism development company named Wuji Wenhua, according to a Chinese stock exchange filing Tuesday. (Deal Street Asia)
Sukeshi Technology (Soocare), the Shenzhen-based smart toothbrush maker, raised nearly Rmb100 million ($16 million) in Series B funding led by Cathay Capital. (Deal Street Asia)
China Unicom, the telecommunication carrier, rolled out eSIM and LET for Apple Watch Series 3. (36Kr)
User number of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds decreased by 12.23% in February, according to Steamcharts. (IT Home)
The auto information-focused website,AutoHome reports USD 269.2 million in revenue in Q4 2017, down 13.1%, with its revenue standing at USD 112.3 million, up 94%. (Tech.iFeng)
Alibaba led a Series C round in Tingjiandan (停简单), a startup dedicated to smart parking. (egsea)
World:
Amazon announced it will offer a low-cost version of its Prime membership program to qualifying recipients of Medicaid. The program will bring the cost of Prime down from the usual $12.99 per month to about half that, at $5.99 per month. (Tech Crunch)
Over the past few days, users with Alexa-enabled devices have reported hearing strange, unprompted laughter. Amazon responded to the creepiness today in a statement to The Verge, saying, “We’re aware of this and working to fix it.” (The Verge)
Former Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick today announced a new investment fund he’s calling 10100, pronounced “ten-one-hundred,” that will focus on his “passions, investments, ideas, and big bets.” The theme of the fund, he says, will be large-scale job creation with a focus on real estate, e-commerce, and innovations from countries like China and India. (The Verge)
Magic Leap still hasn’t released a product, but they’re continuing to raise a lot of cash to get there. The Plantation, Florida-based augmented reality startup announced today that it has raised $461 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm, The Public Investment Fund. (Tech Crunch)
A group of Japanese banks is planning to use Ripple‘s blockchain-based payments technology in a forthcoming product aimed at general consumers. According to an announcement on Tuesday by the San Francisco-based startup, Japan’s SBI Net Sumishin Bank, Suruga Bank and Resona Bank will launch a smartphone application in autumn this year, dubbed MoneyTap, that will be powered by Ripple’s distributed ledger technology (DLT). (Coindesk)