Editor’s note:
The Indonesian authorities said they have found at least 360 Tumblr accounts contained pornographic content and Tumblr had not replied to its letter demanding obscene content to be deleted within 48 hours.
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: Indonesia has blocked online blogging service Tumblr over pornographic content, the government said Tuesday, in Jakarta’s latest crackdown on obscenity. (Yahoo.Finance)
Singapore: Singapore-developed chat application Consentium, also claimed to be Asia’s first multi-digital currency and group monetisation application, has launched in the region with a $10-million funding raised from a private ICO sale held on January 25. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Singapore-headquartered online budget hotel booking chain RedDoorz has raised $11 million in its pre-series B funding round backed by existing investors, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and a number of new investors, the company announced. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: India’s Hotelogix, a cloud-based hotel property management solutions provider, said on Monday that it has raised $5 million in a round led by Vertex Ventures. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), the country’s antitrust body, has raised the mandatory P1-billion ($19 million) threshold for merger and acquisition transactions to keep up with the recent economic developments, according to a statement posted on its website. (Deal Street Asia)
Myanmar: SGX-listed Yoma Strategic Holdings announced that it will acquire 34 percent stake in Digital Money Myanmar Co Ltd, the operator of leading mobile money brand Wave Money from affiliate firm First Myanmar Investment Co Ltd, for $19.4 million, a press release stated. (Deal Street Asia)
Thailand: Thailand’s largest mobile phone operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS), is investing Bt787 million ($25 million) in e-money provider Rabbit-Line Pay for a 33.33-percent stake. (Deal Street Asia)
Thailand: Thailand’s largest retailer, Central Group, plans to invest around $1.51 billion to substantially expand its store footprint locally and overseas, and is aiming to grow sales by 14 percent this year, its chief executive said on Monday. Central, which has operations in Europe and Vietnam, also expects to open stores in Malaysia in the fourth quarter of this year, CEO Tos Chirativat told reporters. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: BEAM, a business and opportunity connector platform, has raised an undisclosed amount in a funding round from SOSV, Australia-based Artesian Ventures, and angel investors. (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Jack Ma is the #20 richest man in the world according to Forbes The World Billionaires. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are the top 3 on the list. (Forbes China)
China’s #1 ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing is rolling out its food delivery service in nine major cities in China, including Nanjing where rival Meituan-Dianping first launched its ride-hailing service. (Caijing)
Chinese co-working space Kr Space has said it raised Rmb600 million ($94.6 million) in a new round of funding in February to fuel its expansion plans. (Deal Street Asia)
Matrix Partners China, a joint venture fund between U.S. venture capital firm Matrix Partners and its Chinese partners, has led a RMB100 million (US$15.8 million) financing round in Chinese genetics testing and analyzing start-up 23Mofang. (China Money Network)
China’s three telecommunication carriers plan to stop charging the data roaming fees from July 1 this year. (Gong Xin Wei Bao)
Alibaba‘s music unit has reached a licensing deal with NetEase Cloud Music to share copyright. (36Kr)
China’s three smartphone brands, OPPO, Vivo, and Huawei, are among the top 5 brands by market share in SE Asia, according to a report by IDC. (36Kr)
China is mulling opportunities to relist foreign-listed companies in the country. The first batch of companies in neo-economy that the Chines authorities plan to facilitate their floatings includes Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Didi Chuxing and Xiaomi. Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial is not included in the batch. (The Paper)
China has seen a growth in demand for blockchain-savvy talent in the first two months in 2018, up 9.7 times compared with the same period in 2017, according to recruiting platform Boss. The average salary for talent in blockchain stands at RMB 25.8 K. (Tech.Sina)
Lei Shing Hong Ltd., which runs Mercedes-Benz dealerships in Asia and Europe, is planning to relist in Hong Kong in a deal that could raise around $800 million, people with knowledge of the matter said. (Deal Street Asia)
World:
India’s largest ride-hailing application Ola is in talks with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and other investors to add $500 million-$1 billion to its war chest, according to people familiar with the development. (The Economic Times)
Japan’s SoftBank is in advanced talks to lead a new round of funding of Rs 3,000 crore in Paytm Mall, according to two sources familiar with the development, as the latter beefs up its fund-raising to take on rivals Flipkart and Amazon. (The Economic Times)
Google says it’s bringing Lens, its Assistant-powered image recognition tool, to all Android phones with Google Photos installed; timeline for iOS debut unknown. (Techmeme)
Source: Uber has burned $10.7B total so far, making its losses worse than tech giants when they had same market cap; revenue lags firms with similar market cap. (Techmeme)
HQ, the live trivia game-show app, tells Axios that it has raised $15 million in new VC funding at a $100 million post-money valuation. Founders Fund led, and was joined by return backer Lightspeed Venture Partners. (Axios)
Source: Sequoia Capital is seeking to raise $12B+ across seven funds, including $8B for its global growth fund, $2.5B for China, and $675M for Southeast Asia. (Techmeme)
WeWork says it’s acquiring SEO and marketing company Conductor to build a “marketing cloud” for enterprise customers. (Techmeme)
Crunchbase Report: since January 2017, blockchain related startups worldwide have raised ~$4.5B via ICOs, almost 3.5x the ~$1.3B raised in traditional VC rounds. (Techmeme)
