Editor’s note:
Jack Ma’s e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba and its financial unit Ant Financial, announced on Monday to buy out Baidu and other investors in Ele.me. The food delivery startup is valued at $9.5 billion.
The buyout will allow Alibaba to enhance its last-mile delivery ability.
KrASIA 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:
Indonesia: Ride-hailing companies Go-Jek and Grab must register in Indonesia as transport companies within two months to ensure they meet safety requirements as a public transport provider, Indonesia‘s transport minister said on Monday. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Japan Exchange Group (JPX), the operator of the Tokyo Stock Exchange has announced that it will sell its entire 4.95% stake in Singapore Exchange (SGX) progressively over a period of about three years. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: In the latest in its Israel investment spree, Singapore fund Temasek Holdings-backed venture capital firm Vertex Ventures has co-led an $11-million seed funding round in Israeli transcription startup Verbit. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesia: Following the recent launch of its joint venture – EV Growth – with East Ventures and Yahoo Japan, Indonesian VC firm Sinar Mas Digital Ventures (SMDV) says it is looking to move away from seed investments and focus more on later stages of funding. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: Philippine-listed AboitizPower Corp, one of the country’s largest power producers, is venturing into the roof top solar space with the launch of a new company, AboitizPower Distributed Energy (APX). (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: Bank of the Philippines Islands, the Ayala Corporation-backed listed bank, has priced its P50-billion ($960 million) stock rights offering at P89.50 ($1.72) a share, according to Monday’s disclosure. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines & Malaysia: Philippines and Malaysia said on Monday they will look into whether Uber Technologies’ move to sell its Southeast Asian business to ride-hailing rival Grab hinders competition, days after Singapore began a probe into the deal on similar concerns. (Deal Street Asia)
SE Asia: Southeast Asian subscription video-streaming platform iflix today announced the launch of Studio2:15, a creative production business for short-form video content. (e27)
Malaysia: Ganesh Kumar Bangah, a well-known Malaysian entrepreneur and founder of MOL Global (Southeast Asia’s first internet company to be listed on NASDAQ), has launched an equity crowdfunding (ECF) campaign on pitchIN for his new venture Commerce.Asia. (e27)
Malaysia & Vietnam: The Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) and Saigon Innovation Hub (SIHUB) announced a strategic partnership aimed to drive collaboration between Malaysian and Vietnamese startups, as well as to provide a platform for the startups to expand their initiatives into both countries. (e27)
China:
Alibaba announced today that it will acquire all outstanding shares that it does not already own in food delivery platform Ele.me. The transaction implies the enterprise value of Ele.me at US$9.5 billion. Alibaba and its financial arm Ant Financial are already the largest shareholder in the company with approximately 43% shares. (Technode)
Alibaba on Monday sued a Dubai-based firm it said has caused confusion by using its trademarked name to raise more than $3.5 million in cryptocurrency known as “Alibabacoins.” (Bloomberg)
Alibaba is keen on cashing in the world’s biggest market for video games—China. The company has signed a deal with Japanese Hit Point, the company behind Travel Frog and Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector. Alibaba will receive exclusive distribution rights in Mainland China for Travel Frog, the mobile phone game that has become a surprise hit among Chinese players. (Technode)
Walmart Inc said on Monday it has opened its first small-sized high-tech supermarket in China, which will stock products that customers will also be able buy on the U.S. retailer’s store on Chinese online marketplace JD.com. (Reuters)
Chinese state media has named and shamed Kuaishou, one of China’s most popular live-streaming apps, for hosting videos that feature teenage mothers, just one day after official media criticism targeting the country’s most widely used news app. (SCMP)
A female passenger has accused ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing of ignoring sexual harassment committed by one of the company’s drivers. In a post on social platform WeChat, the passenger described her account of the incident and wrote a scathing criticism of Didi’s customer service. The post has since gone viral. (Technode)
ZhenFund, a Beijing-based Sequoia Capital China-backed seed fund, seeks to raise $190 million for a fifth venture fund within the year, according to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. (Deal Street Asia)
Nomura is buying a majority stake in a Hong Kong-based fintech firm 8 Securities, the Tokyo-based investment bank said in a media statement. The bank will splash out JPY2.7 billion ($25.4 million) in total for two stakes – one majority and one minority in two separate entities of the fintech. (Finews)
The Trump administration this week will unveil the list of Chinese imports targeted for U.S. tariffs to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies, a move expected to intensify trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. (Reuters)
China regulators fined content makers on video-streaming platforms including Sina Video and US-listed iQiyi for spoof videos. (36Kr)
Tencent PR director ZHANG Jun said the rumor about Tencent blocking Toutiao and Douyin goes too far. (36Kr)
Meituan-Dianping is summoned by Chengdu regulators on March 30 in regards to its yet-to-launch ride-hailing services, demanding the e-commerce major not to leverage on lower-than-cost prices to entice users. (36Kr)
Tencent has its driverless car on a real road test in Beijing on Monday, showing its driverless car to the public for the first time. (36Kr)
Baidu reached a strategic partnership with automaker Chongqing Sokon industrial group in autonomous driving, Internet of vehicles and cloud computing. (36Kr)
Tencent led an RMB 100 million round in Xiaoshouyi, a Chinese CRM system provider. (36Kr)
Regulators in Beijing summoned JD for selling products and publications that violate laws and regulations. JD said it will rectify to comply with regulations. (36Kr)
Alibaba-invested Souche, a vehicle online marketplace, acquired Cheyipai, a second-hand car marketplace. (36Kr)
EV maker Xiaopeng is going to accept orders for its G3 model from the end of April. (Tech.qq)
World:
SoftBank Group is investing $400 million in India’s Paytm E-Commerce Pvt. Ltd. in a funding round that will value the online retailer at roughly $1.9 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Monday. (Reuters)
Swiggy and Zomato are in talks with at least three new investors each to raise more capital, three people familiar with the matter said. Swiggy may raise as much as $200 million, one of the people said. Zomato may raise anywhere between $200 million and $400 million, the other two people said. The final amount raised by the two companies may change because the talks are at an initial stage. (Deal Street Asia)
As controversy swirls around the death of a Model X driver last month, the head of Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car unit is drawing distinctions between his company’s technology and Tesla Inc.’s Autopilot. (Bloomberg)
Online pharmacy start-up PillPack is in talks to be acquired by Walmart for under $1 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter. (CNBC)
Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans. (Bloomberg)
Alphabet Inc. is changing a closely watched measure of Google’s digital advertising business and adjusting how it accounts for some private stock holdings, a move that will make reported income more volatile. (Bloomberg)
