SEA
Grab partnered with Cargo, a US-based in-car commerce startup, to launch Grab&Go. This will benefit both drivers and passengers. Drivers will be able to earn on average an extra S$75 – S$250 per month from sales commission and bonus. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesia’s Tokopedia will lose one top executive. The e-commerce major’s VP of Business, Amit Lakhotia, has resigned from the company, people familiar with the matter told Deal Street Asia. (Deal Street Asia)
Moovaz, Singapore’s logtech startup, has secured $1 million in seed funding which will be used to further develop its core platform and data analytics capabilities, at the same time prepare to expand into the Asia-Pacific region. (Deal Street Asia)
The rise in ride-hailing firms such as Uber and Grab have resulted in Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC to divest its entire stake in Vinasun, a Vietnamese taxi firm. (Deal Street Asia)
China
Tencent and Toutiao sued each other on the first day of June for unfair competition, and Alibaba, once again, voiced its support for Toutiao against Tencent, offering its olive branch to Toutiao, one of China’s most valuable startups. Alibaba was rumored to have attempted to invest billions of dollars in Toutiao’s latest round of financing. (KrASIA)
Alibaba made a strategic investment in China’s largest parenting website Babytree which is valued at RMB 14 billion (approx. US$2.2 billion). Alibaba and Babytree plan to collaborate in e-commerce, C2M, marketing, new retail, and other domains. (36Kr)
The logistics affiliate of Alibaba, Cainiao Network, is investing more than US$15 billion to improve delivery reach and efficiency through creating a technical backbone for a smart logistics network, and is willing to invest more if necessary. (Technode)
Nvidia has launched several new products. Nvidia ISACC robotics platform, used to power the new generation of autonomous machines, Jetson Xavier, the world’s first intelligent machine processor designed for robotics, and more. Nvidia also announced it will deepen its collaboration with Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology to grow Taiwan’s AI capabilities. (Technode)
YU Xin, co-founder of ofo, has denied allegations of firing 50% of its employees and that its Chief Operating Officer Zhang Yanqi is resigning. (Technode)
Regulators have criticized short video platform Meipai for negatively affecting the physical and mental health of youths by spreading vulgar content. (Technode)
Foxconn is looking to set up a new manufacturing plant in Egypt as the company seeks to integrate Egypt into its global supply chain. (Pingwest)
Fan Qingfeng, a demoted executive at ZTE, has been replaced as Communist Party secretary in hopes to persuade US to lift the export ban that greatly impacted ZTE’s major operations. (SCMP)
China is going to connect a data center in Guizhou province to four others across the country in a bid to establish the infrastructure for a nationwide healthcare data center network. (SCMP)
Tomorrow Advancing Life invests tens of millions of yuan in online education platform Zhishiquan. The startup claims to have around 50k teachers and 5 million students. (36Kr)
The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance plans to set up a US$1 billion fund which will involve 20 partners who will not only provide financial support but also share projects. The exchange also announced the first project in its incubator program will be a blockchain-based ride-hailing platform. (Deal Street Asia)
China’s cloud service startup BaishanCloud has raised RMB240 million (US$37.4 million) in a Series C+ round led by Guizhou Big Data Industry Fund, Galaxy Dingfa Investment, and Shenzhen Dewei Capital, with participation from existing shareholders and Jinsheng Capital as a strategic investor. The company plans to use the funds in R&D and improve its services. (36Kr)
MTR Corporation, Hong Kong’s rail operator, is interested in applying QR codes for payment in its rail network. The company plans to allow QR code-enabled payment on current Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) gates. (e27)
Rest of Asia
Flipkart will focus on scale and growth after the acquisition by Walmart, according to Flipkart co-founder and CEO Binny Bansal. Flipkart’s board of directors will continue to run the company. (LiveMint)
The Japanese government plans to test autonomous driving vehicles on public roads in this fiscal year and seeks to launch a driverless car service for 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as the country eyes to leverage on new technologies to boost economic growth. (Reuters)
Locus, a logistics mapping startup based in India, has received US$4 million in pre-Series B funding to venture globally. (Techcrunch)
World
Microsoft has acquired GitHub. San Francisco-based GitHub is a tool for coders and many corporations including Microsoft to store their corporate code and to collaborate. It was valued at US$2 billion in 2015. (Bloomberg)
Facebook has shared users’ personal data with device makers including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung, over the last 10 years. Without the users’ consent, these device makers have been granted access to users’ status, political leaning, education history, religion and events they are going to attend. (New York Times)
Gadgets
Apple will launch AR tools next week, according to Reuters citing people familiar with the matter. The tools will allow two iPhone users to share augmented reality while curbing personal data sharing. Apple and Google are racing to debut AR tools to entice developers to their platforms. (Reuters)
Good News Bad News
SpaceX delays the launch of a pair of paying consumers to circle the moon as announced by Elon Musk in 2017, as the project faces technical and production challenges. The new timetable hasn’t been released yet. (WSJ)
