Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 01/28/2021

CHINA:

1. Shanghai adds advanced chip production to its 2021 priority list along with Tesla, digital currency

2. Chinese electric carmaker Xpeng rolls out autonomous highway driving features in challenge to Tesla

3. TSMC ramps up auto chip production as carmakers wrestle with shortages

4.Chinese VC firm Qiming raises $433m in final close of its yuan-denominated fund

5. Tencent Releases Vulgar Image Recognition Tech

6. Alibaba-backed AutoX Rolls Out Fully Driverless Robotaxis in Shenzhen

7. China’s Agile Robots nets $130m from Sequoia, GL Ventures, others

8. Faraday Future to get $310 million lifeline from Chinese state-owned enterprises

9. OnePlus Co-founder Carl Pei Obtains $7M Financing For New Startup Nothing

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. India: Student loan provider MPOWER raises $25m from Tilden Park

2. Former Facebook employees’ social audio startup Headfone secures $3m in series A round

3. Thai car rental startup Drivehub raises 7-figure funding from Toyota Tsusho, others

CROSS-BORDER:

1. TikTok cuts jobs in India, not clear if it can make a comeback after prolonged ban

2. Singapore, Australia-based martech startup IMMedia secures series A funding

3. Adtech unicorn AppsFlyer appoints ex-Oracle, Google exec for SEAPAC

4. Ant Group to sell US-based biometric security firm EyeVerify, report says

5. Tencent buys minority stake in French games maker Dontnod for $36.4m

6. US-Listed Chinese Companies Rush To List In Hong Kong

7. Japan’s SoftBank eyes stake in Polish online footwear retailer eobuwie

OVERSEAS

1. SoftBank teams with home-goods maker Iris Ohyama for new robotics venture

2. TCV closes record $4B fund to invest in e-commerce, fintech, edtech, travel and more

3. Samsung Electronics sees solid chip demand, stronger phone sales in first quarter

4. Apple logs record quarterly smartphone shipments, Huawei in freefall

5. The online website creation and hosting service Squarespace files privately to go public

6. SAP is buying Berlin business process automation startup Signavio

7. Tesla underwhelms Wall St with hazy 2021 delivery outlook, profit miss

8. IAC’s Teltech acquired encrypted mobile messaging app Confide

9. Fintech company Albert banks $100M Series C

10. Stilt, a financial services provider for immigrants, raises $100 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank

11. Booksy, an online platform for finding and booking beauty and wellness appointments, has raised $70 million

12. Literati raises $40M for its book club platform 

13. Lynk, a “knowledge-as-a-service” platform with more than 840,000 experts, raises $24 million

14. Starship Technologies, a provider of autonomous delivery services, has raised $17 million

15. Pinecone lands $10M seed for purpose-built machine learning database

16. LottieFiles, a platform for the animation format, lands $9 million Series A led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund

17. Finesse Sews Up $4.5M Seed To Predict Latest Fashion Trends

18. Doorvest Lands $2.5M Seed Round To Simplify Real Estate Investing

Image Credits: CNBC