SEA
Redmart, Amazon, and the battle to be your go-to for groceries. Redmart is going after Southeast Asia’s annualised US$500 billion market. (Tech In Asia)
Google Maps launches ‘motorbike mode’ in Singapore. Motorcyclists who want an estimate of how long their journey may take will no longer have to rely on pure guesswork. (Straits Times)
Ascletis draws Singapore’s GIC as cornerstone investor for first pre-profit biotech IPO in Hong Kong. The IPO price range implies a market value of $1.7 to $2.3 billion. (Deal Street Asia)
U.S based Vemanti Group takes 20 per cent stake in Vietnamese fintech firm eLoan. The company will execute a cash and stock exchange for its stake in eLoan. (Deal Street Asia)
Singtel-owned Amobee to buy bankrupt Videology’s assets. Having filed for bankruptcy, Amobee is looking to pay up to $20.9m for its assets and a further $80m for Videology’s debt financing. (KrASIA)
China
Beijing’s new Zaha Hadid-designed airport to showcase latest facial recognition technology. Chinese startups-designed facial recognition technologies will be used for security screening at Beijing’s new airports. The new airport can handle up to 100 million passengers a year. (SCMP)
Pinduoduo: A closer look at the fastest growing app in China. This startup has literally exploded since its inception in 2015, very quickly rising to become one of the largest ecommerce apps in China. (Tech In Asia)
AI startup Yitu receives another $100 million in funding. Banks are its predominant backers for its recent fundraisings. The company’s technology has been deployed for use with the country’s ubiquitous surveillance systems. (Technode)
Nanjing to create $20 billion integrated circuit investment fund. It is set itself to turn itself into a chip mecca. Currently, Huatian Technologies, Taiwanese chipmaking giant TSMC and Tsinghua Unigroup have built plants in Nanjing. (Technode)
China’s Pintec Technology files for $70m Nasdaq IPO. This financial technology firm have both business partners from telecommunications to online education and financial partners like banks and investment funds. (KrASIA)
Chinese digital education player Koolearn.com seeks HK float. This follows three financing round, issuing up to a total of 154,812,432 shares, with 13,858,832 preference shares. (KrASIA)
Google launches its first WeChat mini program as its China experiments continue. WeChat has become the main distribution channel in China and Google is embracing it. (TechCrunch)
After Australia, Ofo next exits Germany amidst push into priority markets. This comes right after its scale back from Australia, the Middle East, India and the United Kingdom. The company said in a statement that it would be focusing its attention on markets that it deemed to be priorities. (Technode)
China’s top homework-helper app Zuoyebang raises $350m. This financing round was led by Coatue Management according to various Chinese media reports. (KrASIA)
Rest of Asia
Japan’s monitoring services – peace of mind for senior citizens living alone. Utilizing robots and IoT technology, family members can check on the senior citizen’s living conditions 24 hours a day. (Trends In Japan)
Mumbai-based BigTree Entertainment, which owns and operates India’s online entertainment ticketing platform, has announced today to agree to raise US$100m led by Spotify investor TPG Growth. (e27)
World
Uber Exec: We want to become the ‘one-stop’ transportation app. The San Francisco headquartered Uber has made big moves, adding e-scooters and bike-sharing to its platform. The firm’s ride-sharing service is now in more than 60 countries. (CNBC)
Social media companies defending filtering practices before Congress. Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc, and Twitter Inc told a U.S house panel that they are not discriminating contents for political reasons. (Reuters)
Slack has announced today that it has acquired Robots and Pencils’ Missions, an app allows Slack users to build tools to automate simple routines without code, as it looks to build integrations that makes sense for its pool of paid business users. (TechCrunch)
Gadgets
Amazon’s Show Mode Dock makes the Echo Show mostly unnecessary. The $55 dock station turns the company’s tablets into smart displays. (TechCrunch)
