Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 04/16/2021

CHINA:

1. China’s FDI inflows surge at fastest rate in 13 years during first quarter, surpassing pre-pandemic level

2. Digital RMB Tested In Hong Kong

3. TSMC sees chip shortage lasting into 2022, books solid profit

4. Tencent merges video teams to draw eyeballs away from Douyin and Kuaishou

5. Carmaker Geely enters China’s packed electric-vehicle arena with the long-range Zeekr 001

6. ByteDance Won Global Video Codecs Comparison Event

7. Tencent raises $4.15b in second major bond deal in a year

8. China’s Luckin Coffee gets $240m investment from two shareholders

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. Brazil-based e-commerce platform Olist, announced an additional $23 million in Series D funding 

2. Philippines ‘buy now, pay later’ startup Plentina raises $2.2M seed round

3. Jungle Ventures launches fourth fund, targets to raise $250m

4. Grab buys 4% stake in Indonesian conglomerate Emtek for $274m, source says

5. Singapore-based esports firm RSG bags $1m from Tembusu Partners’ PE fund

6. Indonesian logistics firm Shipper secures $63m in series B funding

7. Karachi-based B2B e-commerce marketplace Bazaar launches digital ledger app Easy Khata, 100,000 merchants sign on in less than two months

CROSS-BORDER:

1. Japanese VC Samurai Incubate closes $18.6M fund for African startups

2. Amazon announces $250 million venture fund for Indian startups

3. SoftBank in talks to invest up to $500 million in Swiggy

OVERSEAS:

1. EU to consider ban on using A.I. for mass surveillance and social credit scores

2. EU antitrust regulators to decide on $9 bln SK Hynix, Intel deal by May 20

3. Amazon spent $11 billion on video and music content last year, up from $7.8 billion in 2019

4. Self-driving truck maker TuSimple valued at $8.5 bln in Nasdaq debut

5. Self-driving startup Cruise raises $2.75 bln from Walmart, others

6. Mobile app and gaming company AppLovin raises $2B in IPO

7. Polestar raises $500M from outside investors as EV market grows

8. Autonomous aviation startup Xwing hits $400M valuation after latest funding round

9. Signifyd, a provider of fraud protection for ecommerce businesses, earns $1.3B valuation following $205M Series E

10. UserZoom raises $100M, acquires EnjoyHQ, to grow its platform to improve UX and other interactive design elements

11. C2i, a genomics SaaS product to detect traces of cancer, raises $100M Series B

12. TetraScience Secures $80M Series B, Rolls Out Open R&D Data Cloud

13. Medable Secures $78M Series C Extension To Scale Digital Clinical Trials Program

14. Lingoda lands $68M for language learning

15. Seven Senders gets $40M for parcel platform

16. Sales scheduling platform Chili Piper raises $33M Series B funding led by Tiger Global

17. Altman brothers lead B2B payment startup Routable’s $30M Series B

18. Home healthcare platform Tomorrow Health inks $25M

19. Bigeye (formerly Toro) scores $17M Series A to automate data quality monitoring

20. Encamp Enlists $12M Series B To Help Businesses And The Environment

21. Saltbox raises $10.6M to help booming e-commerce stores store their goods

Image Credits: FT.com