Editor’s note:
Manu Kumar Jain, the Managing Director and vice-president of Xiaomi India, told The Economic Times that the Chinese smartphone manufacturer had invested in 10 startups until 2017 and will invest in around 100 in the next five years to strengthen its ecosystem.
Xiaomi seeks to sell more products, such as laptop and electric cycle, in India and launched its first flagship experience store in Chennai three weeks ago.
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: Thousands of motorcycle taxi drivers protested on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat in Central Jakarta on Tuesday to demand that the government help them get higher pay from the ride-hailing services they work with. (Jakarta Post)
SE Asia: Online marketplace for local services in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, ServisHero has announced that it is preparing for its upcoming Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in which the platform’s ecosystem will be powered by the ServisHero Coin that built on the Ethereum Blockchain. (Digital News Asia)
SE Asia: Drivers who have contracts with Uber‘s car rental partner Lion City Rental (LCR) will now be allowed to accept Grab bookings, said Grab in an email to Channel NewsAsia on Tuesday (Mar 27). (Channel News Asia)
Singapore: Singtel Innov8, the venture capital arm of Singaporean telecom firm Singtel, has participated in a $15-million Series A funding round for Australian satellite company Myriota, the startup has announced. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Singapore-based biopharma firm ASLAN Pharmaceuticals has filed for a proposed initial public offering (IPO) in the US to raise capital for clinical development of its products and trials. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Akzo Nobel has agreed to sell its specialty chemicals business to U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group and Singapore’s GIC for 10.1 billion euros ($12.6 billion), including debt. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesia: Global private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has announced that it will divest its entire stake in Indonesian telecom infrastructure firm PT Komet Infra Nusantara (KIN) to tower operator Profesional Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Protelindo). (Deal Street Asia)
Myanmar: International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private landing arm of the World Bank Group, is extending a long-term financing facility of $15 million for the development of a greenfield bulk terminal at Thilawa, the IFC announced on March 27. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: Vietnam’s co-working space operator Toong will now be present across the Indochina markets with its entry into Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this month, founder & CEO Duong Do told DEALSTREETASIA in an exclusive interview. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Malaysia-based investment holding firm UMW Holdings Berhad has announced that its proposal to acquire 50.07 per cent equity interest in MBM Resources Bhd (MBMR) has been rejected by MBMR’s shareholder. (Deal Street Asia)
Malaysia: Agriculture and timberlands investor New Forests Asset Management has made an additional equity investment in Malaysia’s Acacia Forest Industries (AFI), which owns a eucalyptus plantation in Sabah, for an undisclosed amount. (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Chinese smartphone major Xiaomi said it will invest Rs 6,000-7,000 crore in around 100 startups in India in the next five years to strengthen its hardware and software ecosystem. (Economic Times)
Meituan-Dianping, the world’s largest O2O e-commerce platform, is in talks with three underwriters, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, to prepare for a floating in Hong Kong, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. (KrASIA)
Inke, one of China’s top live-streaming platforms, filed on Monday with HKEX for an initial public offering in a bid to fuel its growth in the brutal competition among Chinese live-streaming platforms. (KrASIA)
A research institute under the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has launched a blockchain-based platform, the first of its kind to be launched under China’s central bank. (Technode)
Blockchain is the biggest buzzword of the year. However, we are just now beginning to see what silly creative ways will this technology be applied. The newest example from China is a blockchain-based toothbrush by a Shenzhen-based 32Teeth, currently crowdfunding the project through the JD Finance platform. (Technode)
China’s digital map service amap launched a carpooling service, providing fee waivers to drivers to entice them to its platform. (36Kr)
Alibaba is reportedly luring away employees from NetEase’s gaming department. (36Kr)
Hisense, a Chinese home appliance maker, is reportedly opening 3000 staff-less stores in China this year. (36Kr)
OPPO is planning a flash sale for its newly launched smartphone in India. (36Kr)
World:
Uber plans to end all autonomous-car testing in California for the foreseeable future, according to a letter from the state Department of Motor Vehicles to the company. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Nvidia is temporarily stopping testing of its autonomous vehicle platform in response to last week’s fatal collision of a self-driving Uber car with a pedestrian. (Tech Crunch)
Uber will pay $10 million to settle a discrimination and hostile workplace class action lawsuit filed last year on behalf of 420 women and minority engineers. (Axios)
Oscar Health has raised $165 million in new funding in a round led by Founders Fund, with participation from two branches of Google’s parent company Alphabet: the Capital G growth investment arm, and the Verily life sciences segment. (CNBC)
Google announced that Google Maps is getting support for 39 additional languages. (Tech Crunch)
Nvidia has taken the AutoSIM virtual environment for testing autonomous cars it originally showed off at CES, combined it with its Drive Pegasus AI in-car computer and created a virtual testing and validation loop that can handle billions of virtual driving miles in hyperrealistic environments, with the ability to model edge cases and recreate conditions that would be difficult to test exhaustively on real roads. (Tech Crunch)
Apple announced Everyone Can Create, a new free curriculum for teachers. The curriculum includes a range of free learning resources and teaching guides to help teachers include drawing, music, filmmaking or photography into lessons, topics, and assignments. (MacRumors)
