Editor’s note:
During the past week, players in Asia’s ride-hailing sector have respectively hit the headline.
Go-Jek and Grab both made strategic movements to ramp up their presence. The Indonesian unicorn is closing a USD 1.2 billion round with tech giants participating. At the same time, the Singapore-headquartered company enriched its think tank by acquiring an Indian digital payment company.
Their archrival Uber didn’t wait to be beaten and has officially launched its low-cost ride-hailing service with ComfortDelGro. In China, Didi has made a considerable step to move forward into the bike-sharing industry.
Kr-ASIA Weekly Roundup highlights tech & startup news of the past week, with a focus on Southeast Asia and China. We also pick up the best features from Kr-Asia and the web that are worth your time. Also, there is always something cool for the weekend.
News of the week:
Go-Jek is reportedly fundraising USD 1.2 billion in the latest round from Google, Singapore state-owned Temasek, and China’s Meituan-Dianping, the world’s largest O2O service provider by valuation. (KrASIA)
Uber Singapore and local taxi company ComfortDelGro (CDG) have officially launched their low-cost ride-hailing service UberFLASH, within Uber’s app. This will allow Singapore users to be matched with the nearest uberX car or CDG taxi. (e27)
Grab has acquired iKaaz, a Bangalore-based digital payments startup. The iKaaz team will join Grab’s Bangalore R&D center upon completion of the acquisition. Grab will also integrate its mobile payments tech, allowing it to build new features and onboard new partners for GrabPay. (e27)
Didi Chuxing has announced that it is launching its bike rental platform today in Beijing and Shenzhen. The platform will be integrated into the ride-hailing giant’s original app and will include both Ofo’s and Bluegogo’s bicycles. (Technode)
China’s second-largest e-commerce firm JD on Tuesday announced that it has led a strategic investment in Tiki, Vietnam’s B2C e-commerce platform. (Deal Street Asia)
Tencent-backed Chinese startup Kuaishou is seeking to raise funds at about a $17 billion valuation as it expands its video-streaming service to Southeast Asia. The company is targeting around $1 billion of financing. (KrASIA)
Xiaomi has selected GoldMan Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank for its planned IPO and is also considering Chinese underwriters. (KrASIA)
Best of Kr-Asia Features:
Didi reportedly curbs Ofo’s financing from Alibaba amidst launching an Ofo rival.
Collapse or reborn? The media industry in the age of AI (Part 5).
Blog posts that worth your time:
How to be 100 times more efficient? 100x’ers own what they do. They know the why, they know the how, and the what of what they do.
The fall of Travis Kalanick was a lot weirder and darker than you thought.
The live trivia game is a hit now in Asia, but why it can go viral in such a short time? Maybe the reason lies in the magic of the pioneer HQ Trivia.
Cool thing of the week:
How do babies see the world? This VR video gives you a virtual experience of the first year of life.
