SEA
Grab officially launched GrabFood on Monday. The food delivery service is now available in Singapore and will be available in the other six Grab markets in the coming months. After acquiring Uber’s operations in the region, Grab moved merchants and users of UberEats to its own platform. (TechCrunch)
ComfortDelGro-Uber deal is off. The Singapore’s taxi-operator and Uber agreed to dissolve the strategic agreement made in last December. ComfortDelGro will no longer be buying a 51 percent stake in Uber’s car rental subsidiary Lion City Holdings. (The Straits Times)
Razer has acquired Malaysia’s payment platform MOL Global for around $61 million in expansion momentum. The Hong Kong-listed company had previously intended to acquire a 65.1% stake in MOL Global and held a 34.9% stake in the Malaysian startup. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesian MAP Active, a sporting goods retailer, is eyeing a US$91.9 million IPO. The company is backed by CVC Capital Partners. (Deal Street Asia)
Traveloka, an Indonesian travel tech startup, launched its car rental service in a bid to provide integrated travel experiences in one app. It has introduced bus ticket booking service, Traveloka Eats, and lending service PayLater. (e27)
Lifesight has raised US$2 million from Provident Capital Partners among other investors. It is a Singapore-headquartered location intelligence platform and claims to have signed deals with clients in Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam’s Viettel Group will launch Myanmar’s first 4G mobile network next month together with its partners, according to the country’s government. (Deal Street Asia)
China
WANG Xiaochuan, CEO of Beijing-based search engine operator Sogou, said that keyword-based search is moving into a query-based era made possible by the advancement of technology. He is confident in Sogou’s proprietary technology in natural language processing as more queries are made by voice. (SCMP)
Baidu Inc has promised to offer its mobile search app, Simple Search, free of paid advertisements. (SCMP)
Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, will become major shareholders of 21.78 million shares each in Foxconn Industrial Internet after its upcoming US$4.3 billion IPO. The financing would be directed at 20 investment projects in eight areas that include industrial internet, cloud computing, data centres and more. (SCMP)
According to Alibaba, technology is the key to eradicate poverty in China as it can help the impoverished to earn money. (SCMP)
Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Tmall will allow users to trade-in old items to get new items and coupons. (PingWest)
The Chinese sugar daddy dating app SeekingArrangement has been taken down from the iOS app store on the 25th of May. (Technode)
JD.com’s financial arm is planning an A-share listing in China at a valuation of RMB 400-500 billion (approx. US$62.5-78.1 billion) in as soon as 2019. JD Finance is reportedly raising a RMB 90 million (approx. US$14 million) round and will be valued at RMB 100 billion (approx. US$15.6 billion) post the funding round. (36Kr)
Ecovacs, China’s auto cleaning robot company, listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday. The company is said to hold 50% of the Chinese cleaning robot market and is expanding to overseas markets. (36Kr)
OPPO appointed VP WU Qiang as head of overseas marketing team in a bid to expand into overseas markets. WU has worked at OPPO for 12 years and was responsible for marketing in mainland China. (36Kr)
Didi Chuxing announced it will launch its food delivery service in another three Chinese cities, Nanjing, Chengdu, and Taizhou, on June 1, stepping up rivalry with Meituan-Dianping. (PingWest)
Pony Ma, Tencent founder and CEO, said China risks falling behind foreign competitors if it doesn’t invest in key research domains which include microchips, operating systems, AI and quantum computing. (SCMP)
Tencent-invested self-media Chaping announced on Monday it will return Tencent’s investment as it was blamed for copyright infringement. Tencent Open Platform Interest-based Content Fund invested in Chaping’s RMB 30 million (approx. US$ 4.7 million) Series A round. (36Kr)
Tencent-backed EV maker NIO has filed confidentially for a US IPO, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. NIO could raise around US$2 billion. (Bloomberg)
WeWork’s Chinese affiliate naked Hub formed a partnership with Le Wagon, a coding boot camp dedicated to entrepreneurs. Le Wagon members will have access to naked Hub’s co-working space and network. (Technode)
Qualcomm Inc requires the last of nine global regulators’ approvals from the Chinese regulators, which they are expected to meet this week in Beijing to secure clearance for its acquisition of NXP Semiconductors for a proposed US$44 billion. (Reuters)
Rest of Asia
India launched its second IT corridor in China, providing market access to Indian IT companies in the burgeoning Chinese market. At the launch of the corridor, agreements worth RMB 36 million (approx. US$6 million) were signed between Indian companies and Chinese customers. (ET)
Xiaomi launched Mi Credit, an instant loan platform, in India in partnership with KreditBee, a loan platform dedicated to young professionals, in a bid to beef up its internet service in the country. Within 10 minutes, the loan can be initiated with a simple KYC verification. (ET)
Mobike pedals into India. The Chinese bike-sharing platform launched its service in two Indian cities, Bhubaneswar and Pune. Mobike launched last year in Australia and Thailand. (The Drum)
World
Swiss Re and SoftBank called off discussions about a potential investment by the Japanese conglomerate. Swiss Re is a Zurich-based reinsurer which offers backup policies to companies that underwrite primary insurance policies. (CNBC)
France and Germany seek to make European tech startups more competitive against those of China and the US. The two countries look to push for an initiative to fund tech startups in the region. (Reuters)
Good News Bad News
Major US media outlets went dark in Europe as per new privacy regulation, European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect last Friday. (Reuters)