Editor’s note:
Huawei is reportedly considering to run blockchain-based apps alongside the Android system. The plan marks the first attempt by a major smartphone maker to adopt the blockchain technologies.
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:
Ant Financial and Indonesia’s Emtek officially launched the e-wallet DANA, which is expected to serve over 50 million BBM users. (36Kr)
Singapore: KPMG on Wednesday announced the acquisition of the Vietnam and Singapore businesses of enterprise mobile app developer Rainmaker Labs. The deal marks KPMG’s first acquisition in Singapore in recent years. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Food delivery service foodpanda Singapore has announced the launch of favourites by foodpanda. Launching on March 30, favourites by foodpanda is a pop-up kitchen with a 30-seater dine-in restaurant bringing together nine popular food and drinks brands. (e27)
Singapore: Sasseur Asset Management Pte. Ltd has announced a plan to raise $300.4 million through the initial public offering and listing of units of Sasseur Real Estate Investment Trust (Sasseur REIT), a privately-owned outlet mall operator in China, on the Singapore Exchange. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: A-Bio, a strategic investment firm established by the Malaysian government, has invested RM7 million ($1.8 million) in Clinipath Malaysia, one of the country’s leading pathology service providers. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: Japanese early stage investor Genesia Ventures has led a $2.5 million Pre-series A funding round in Vietnam’s Airbnb-like startup Luxstay. Founders Capital, Y1 Ventures and two other investors also joined the round. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: The Philippines’ ChatbotPH, an AI-powered chatbot company, has joined the Sterling Paper Group of Companies through an acquisition deal of an undisclosed amount. (e27)
The Philippines: Philippine-based Coins.ph has partnered with beep™, the country’s popular contactless payment provider to launch a new function that allows commuters to easily reload their beep™ cards using NFC-enabled Android smartphones. (e27)
Indonesia: The Indonesian blockchain association (Asosiasi Blockchain Indonesia, A-B-I) is being launched today in West Jakarta. The association was being founded by six blockchain companies with operations in Indonesia: Blocktech Indonesia, Blockchain Zoo, INDODAX, Indonesian Blockchain Network, Luno, and PundiX. (e27)
China:
Huawei Technologies Ltd., the world’s third-biggest handset maker, is considering developing a mobile phone that will be able to run blockchain-based applications, according to two people familiar with the plans. (Bloomberg)
Best Buy, US’s largest electronics big box retailer, has ceased ordering new smartphones from Huawei and will stop selling its products over the next few weeks, according to a person familiar with the situation. Best Buy made the decision to end the relationship, the person said. (CNET)
An employee at Huawei told media the company doesn’t have the plan to go public, just as what Huawei founder REN Zhengfei has always claimed. (tech.sina)
Meituan-Dianping, the world’s largest O2O platform, officially kicked off its ride-hailing service in Shanghai on Wednesday, as the company seeks to further diversify its services. (KrASIA)
Meituan-Dianping uses steep discounts and fee waivers to glue users and drivers. The company mentioned those in its advertisement for its services in Shanghai. Regulators in Shanghai asked Meituan-Dianping to rectify according to regulations. (36Kr)
Jack Ma’s e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba is planning to buy Pakistani e-commerce platform Daraz to further expand its presence across Asia, reports Bloomberg on Tuesday. (KrASIA)
Ubisoft is announcing today that French multimedia conglomerate Vivendi is selling all of its shares in the game maker. This ends Vivendi’s bid to takeover Ubisoft. New investors include the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Chinese multimedia internet conglomerate Tencent. (Venture Beat)
China will permit foreign companies to access its $27 trillion payments market, further opening up the world’s second-largest economy. Foreign players can start applying for payment licenses and will be treated the same as local firms, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement on Wednesday. (Deal Street Asia)
Two of China’s largest online platforms are publicly accusing each other of harming their interests. According to accusations, China’s Twitter-like social platform Weibo has been blocking Douyin, a popular short video app owned by Bytedance. (Technode)
KKR & Co on Wednesday announced the launch of a new multi-brand digital marketing company, Cue & Co, formed by combining four digital media firms it acquired in China. (Deal Street Asia)
Chinese venture capital firm Source Code Capital has led a US$320 million series C round in Edianzu, an enterprise IT and office desktop leasing start-up, valuing the firm at US$200 million. (China Money Network)
Alibaba surpassed Facebook in market capitalization after a nearly $50 billion lost in the latter’s market capitalization, according to data piled up by CNBC. (inews.qq)
In 2017, Tencent reports RMB 237.76 billion revenue, up 56%, while its profit stands at RMB 72.47 billion, up 75%. The net margin for 2017 is 27%. (36Kr)
Alibaba and JD.com are likely to relist in China as soon as in June. Tencent is also mulling opportunities to do the same. (36Kr)
Ping An vice CEO CHEN Xinying said its subsidiary unicorn Lu.com doesn’t have the plan to go public this year. (36Kr)
JD.com announced to tap into the supply chain for restaurants and is likely to cooperate with Meituan-Dianping. (eeo)
Sequoia Capital leads a funding round in WeChat mini program-based e-commerce platform SEE. The round is worth tens of thousands of US dollars. (36Kr)
World:
Google is working on blockchain-related technology to support its cloud business and head off competition from emerging startups that use the heavily-hyped technology to operate online in new ways, according to people familiar with the situation. (Bloomberg)
Cloud storage firm Dropbox Inc raised the price range for its initial public offering by $2 on Wednesday as investors bid strongly for the first big tech IPO this year ahead of final pricing expected on Thursday. (Reuters)
SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund is looking to invest as much as $150 million in Loggi, a Brazilian-based platform that matches couriers to shippers, according to people familiar with situation. (Bloomberg)
