News:
Line Indonesia has finished its first acquisition in Indonesia by acquiring Indonesia-based TemanJalan, a carpooling platform designed for students. Line wishes to develop its capability in developing chatbot platform and gain an insight about the local market. ( e27 )
Indonesian e-commerce startup Bukalapak is claimed to be the forth unicorn company in Indonesia with a new undisclosed funding round. Following Go-Jek, Traveloka, and Tokopedia, the startup has Emtek Group, 500 Startups, GREE Ventures, and QueensBridge Venture Partners as investors prior to the new funding round. (e27)
Garena’s parent company Sea’s loss more than doubled in the third quarter as the marketing costs at mobile-shopping unite Shopee surged. About 85 percent of the company’s total revenue in the third quarter came from the games unit Garena. The Singapore-based gaming and e-commerce company brands itself as an emerging company with operations in Southeast and Taiwan. It has raised about $884 million through an IPO this October. (Bloomberg)
Another two bike-sharing company in China bite the dust. Kuqi and Xiaoming Bike reported to on its way to bankruptcy. In the latest five months, six bike-sharing companies have closed down or stopped operation. (The Beijing News)
Chinese online microlenders are undergoing a difficult time. Shares of Qudian and China Rapid Finance dropped as much as 20 percent as China is reportedly to halt approvals for new online microlenders. Shares of Hexindai and Yirendai also tumbled. The country is to issue new regulations on online microlenders next week. (Yicai, Bloomberg)
Tencent has surpassed Facebook and become the fifth biggest company in terms of market value after Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon. The market value of the Chinese tech mogul has seen a four-day rise and reached $522.9 billion. (Tech.QQ)
Uber lost records on 57 million customers and drivers after hackers got access to a third-party code management host GitHub. It’s common for software developers to use GitHub as it facilitates collaboration and applications’ early-stage distributions. (Bloomberg)
Best of Kr-Asia features:
Chinese regulatory agencies suspend licensing for Internet microlenders. Here is why it matters.
Cash loan “supermarkets”, a byproduct of the cash loan business, are generating huge profits for their operators. Here is how it works out.
Chinese tech moguls BATJ are becoming technological enablers of the financial sector. Here is how it happens and where it might go.
Blog posts that worth your time:
U.S.-listed RYB education saw a 38 percent drop in its shares. Allegations of child abuse sent the company’s shares to a record low since its September IPO.
Investors are seeing growing opportunities in China in three core areas: data technology, gaming and higher lifestyle consumption.
Decisions made by AI can be tough to explain even by developers. So can AI be intelligent enough to explain itself?
Cool things of the week:
While commuters are drinking their morning coffee, London buses are to be powered by diesel extracted from waste coffee grounds.
We are closer to build a capable Avatar. Toyota’s third-generation humanoid robot T-HR3 has a much flexible body compared with its robot ancestors.