China’s bike sharing top player Mobike has landed its very first investment from an overseas investor. Together with LINE, the Chinese startup plans to expand its bike-sharing services in Japan. Users will can access the service and pay for rides through the LINE app.
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:
Singapore: Temasek led an $80 million financing round of Tessa Therapeutics, a Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company. (Deal Street Asia)
Philippines: San Miguel has made one of the largest deal in the Philippines’ corporate history, acquiring power firm Masin-AES for $1.9 billion. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: FundedHere, an equity crowd finance platform, has mopped up S$516,000 ($416,761) for AEvice Health, a local startup specialized in wearable devices, exceeding the original S$450,000 ($334,269) target. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Temasek’s Pierfront Capital Mezzanine Fund has invested $15 million (S$20.2 million) in the SGX-listed regional engineering company, TEE International. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: SGX-Listed Allied Technologies, a manufacturer of precision stamped metal parts, is investing $10 million (S$12.5 million) into 8travelplay Intelligence & Technology (8TPS), a Chinese firm who provides payment and technology solutions to the corporate travel market. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Standard Chartered Bank’s Singapore-based PE arm, Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE), has acquired Korea’s second largest toasted and seasoned laver brand Sung Gyung Food. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: EQT-backed corporate services provider InCorp Group has acquired Kittelson & Carpo Consulting, a Philippines-based business consulting firm. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: STI Financial Group (STI) has acquired a 35% stake in the holding company of Asia Management Fund (AMF), Global Movers Inc (GM). STI is a Hong Kong-based asset manager which provides bespoke capital solutions. AMF specializes in spread trading and liquidity provider strategies on high quality, liquid blue chip counters. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: Udenna Development is poised to acquired Philippine’s H2O Ventures, an investment holding company from Jolliville Holdings. (Deal Street Asia)
Myanmar: Member of the World Bank Group, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), is planning to extend a loan of as much as $30 million dedicated to boosting the development and operation of a greenfield bulk terminal in Myanmar. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: MY EG Capital, e-government service provider MyEG’s venture investment arm, has acquired a 23.5 % stake in enterprise software firm Stampede for MYR 10.4 million ($2.55 million). (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Online gold trading startup HelloGold won startup competition TechMatch ASEAN 2017 which is held by iLabs, MDEC, and Silicon Valley-based US Market Access Center. (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Mobike lands investment from Japan’s largest messaging app LINE, expanding its bike-sharing service in Japan. (Kr-Asia)
Alibaba Cloud launched the new AI-powered solution to airport flight delays, ET Aviation Brain, which is also the newest product of Alibaba’s AI programme ET Brian. (e27)
Commercial rocket launch company ExPace has raised money from eight unnamed investors. (China Money Network)
JD teamed up with Tencent-backed EV maker NIO to roll out a service that allows deliveries to boots that open to authorized couriers. (36Kr)
China Consumer Association suggests on the misappropriation of the bike-sharing deposit, stating that the bike-sharing companies can freeze an amount from the customers’ account instead of getting the money transferred to their account. (36Kr)
Baidu partner with Xiongan New Area, introducing its Apollo data open ecosystem and its autonomous vehicles in the city. (36Kr)
Google is expanding its AI hardware business in China, with the team member raised from 20 to 150 in a year. (36Kr)
Xiaomi Store has rolled an instant noodle product priced at ¥5 with delivery fees included. Lei Jun replied to the speculation that Xiaomi is entering the instant noodle industry, stating it’s not true. (36Kr)
Ali Cloud partnered with Internet food brand 3songshu, introducing a store adopted a dynamic pricing system. (ebrun)
Didi and ofo investor Zhu Xiaohu, said the future of a startup lies in whether the team is clear about where they are heading to. （NetEase）
President at Ali Cloud, Hu Xiaoming, introduced the idea of AI for Industries at Alibaba’s 2017 Computing Conference, adding actions to burst the bubble in the AI industry is essential to the development in AI. (36Kr)
Chinese tech moguls Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu, have made respectively 133, 45 and 39 investments in 2017, with a focus on the late-stage programs. Their investments in overseas countries are mostly in the U.S. and Indonesia. (Lieyunwang)
Meituan launches ride-hailing service in seven major cities across China. (36Kr)
Three Chinese panel producer, namely BOE, CSOT and Tianma, reported planning an investment in Japan’s panel producer JDI. (21so)
SoftBank China Capital invested tens of thousands of yuan in autonomous driving map startup Geo. (36Kr)
World:
European Court rules Uber is a taxi service. (TechCrunch)
Indian authorities plan to regulate on cryptocurrencies. (Reuters)
International Finance Corporation invested in India’s online insurance broker Coverfox. (VCCircle)
Litcoin founder Charlie Lee claimed to have sold all his litcoin holdings, without intention to quit the business. (36Kr)
Samsung claimed to have developed the world’s smallest DRAM chips, surpassing rivals in technologies. (Tencent)
Apple seeks to develop apps applicable on iPhone, iPad and Mac. (Tencent)
The total shipments of wearable devices are estimated to reach 113 billion pieces in 2017 and are likely to rise to 222.3 billion by 2021, according to reports by IDC. (Sina)
Elon Musk twitted photos of Falcon Heavy which is closed to be fully assembled. Musk said earlier this month the trial-fly is projected in January next year. (Sina)
In the third quarter, Blackberry saw a decrease of 22% in revenue compared to last year, making $226 million in revenue and $275 million in net loss. (iFeng)
The number of people looking to buy bitcoin with credit cards has surged, according to Google Trends. (Bloomberg)