CHINA:
1. Nio deliveries in January quadruple from a year ago, signaling a strong start to 2021
2. Ant Group reaches deal with China regulators on restructuring
3. Alibaba Cloud turns profitable after 11 years
4. JD.com’s social commerce platform Jingxi saw surging sales from college students in 2021
5. Lenova Plans To List On STAR Board Within Months
6. Pinduoduo Partners with Fertilizer Giant to Kick Off Horticulture Fad
7. China’s Tencent fires 100 employees, blacklists 37 firms in anti-graft campaign
8. Chinese edtech firms’ $7.8b fundraising frenzy masks some hard truths on profitability
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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:
1. Grab announces program to help increase COVID-19 vaccinations in Southeast Asia
2. Cialfo nets US$15M Series A+ to allow students to apply directly to thousands of colleges globally
3. Virtual voice agent developer Agara banks $4.3m in pre-series A extension
4. Equity management startup Qapita raises fresh funding from East Ventures for expansion push
7. Indian gaming startup MPL raises USD 100 million at USD 800 million valuation
8. Healthtech startup MediBuddy completes Series B funding round
CROSS-BORDER:
1. Global smartphone shipments expected to rebound 11% this year
2. Tesla nears final approval to sell its cars in Singapore, source says
3. Xiaomi sues US government over investment ban
4. Temasek-backed ABC World Asia leads $24m round in Vietnam’s Kim Dental
OVERSEAS
1. Apple and Hyundai-Kia pushing toward deal on Apple Car
2. Ebay earnings beat on pandemic-driven surge in online shopping; shares soar
3. Amazon plans AI-powered cameras in delivery vans to improve driver safety
4. Amazon begins testing customer deliveries using Rivian electric vans
5. Uber agrees to buy alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion
6. Box acquires e-signature startup SignRequest for new content workflows
7. Cross-border payment Payoneer to enter public market via SPAC
8. Vivino raises $155M for wine recommendation app
9. Grocery delivery company Good Eggs raises $100M and plans to launch in Southern California
10. TouchCast raises $55M to grow its mixed reality-based virtual event platform
11. Granulate nabs $30M for software to optimize workloads and latency
12. Rocket.Chat raises $19M for its open-source approach to integrated enterprise messaging
13. Evinced Accesses $17M Series A For Accessibility
14. Duality scores $14M DARPA contract for hardware-accelerated homomorphic encryption
15. Scratchpad Lands $13M To Organize Sales Professionals’ Workspaces
16. Finding The Best Doctors: Garner Health Brings In $12.5M Series A For Recommendation Platform
17. Floral marketplace BloomNation Raises $11M Series B, Moves Under Umbrella Of Promenade
18. Beam raises $9.5 million to build a web browser that collects ideas
19. Document analytics firm DocSend used this deck to bag $1.7m in its seed round
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