Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 05/19/2021

CHINA:

1. China bans financial, payment institutions from cryptocurrency business

2. China’s Baidu beats quarterly revenue estimates on cloud, AI boost

3. Food delivery platform Ele.me fined for misleading pricing

4. Proterra Asia invests in Chinese yoghurt brand Simple Love

5. Eight Roads Ventures led a $10-million pre-B round in KnowYourself (KY), a Beijing-based mental health content platform

6. Chinese food delivery robot maker PuduTech bags funding from Sequoia, Meituan, others

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. Southeast Asia’s VCs close five funds in Q1, another 55 continue to amass dry powder 

2. Egyptian furniture marketplace Homzmart lands $15M Series A for MENA expansion

3. Singapore tech giant Sea’s Q1 losses widen to $422m, revenue up 2.4x

4. Singapore biotherapeutics firm Hummingbird bags $125m in series C round

5. Singapore’s payment startup Thunes bags $60m from Insight Partners-led round

6. SGInnovate joins $2m round in martech startup Affable

7. A digital ledger app for MSMEs in Indonesia, BukuKas, bags US$50M in Series B funding to expand its services offered to merchants

8. Indonesian ecommerce major Bukalapak acquires 500 Startups-backed Itemku

9. East Ventures, Beenext lead Indonesian cross-border remittance startup Transfez’s seed round

10. E-commerce enabler Great Deals closes US$30M Series B to build automated fulfilment centre in Philippines

CROSS-BORDER:

1. Shein overtakes Amazon as the most installed shopping app in US

2. Alibaba, partners invest $400m in Vietnam’s Masan Group to expand online groceries business

3. Singapore-based startup Affable.ai raises US$2M to expand its influencer marketing service to the US

4. Israel-based work management platform Monday.com to file for IPO on Nasdaq

OVERSEAS:

1. Health Diagnostic Startups Raised Record $4.8B In 2020, See New Opportunities Post-Pandemic

2. Electric scooter rentals to launch in London next month

3. Discovery CEO David Zaslav sees 400 million streaming subscribers one day for combined Discovery-WarnerMedia

4. IBM to acquire Salesforce partner Waeg

5. Kia’s fast-charging EV6 electric crossover is coming to the U.S. in early 2022

6. UTEC, one of Asia’s largest deep-tech investment firms, launches new $275M fund

7. Beta Technologies adds $368 million in Series A funding for its electric aviation ecosystem

8. Back Market, an online marketplace for refurbished electronics, bags $335M to value the company at $3.2B

9. SoftBank-Backed Extend Pumps $260M Series C Into Revamping Extended Warranty, Protection Plan Industry

10. Secfi Secures $150M Round To Walk Employees Through Complex World Of Stock Options

11. Philadelphia-based customer analytics and subscription platform Piano Tunes Up New $88M Round

12. Fintech startup Vise raises $65 million in Series C led by Ribbit Capital

13. Styra, the startup behind Open Policy Agent, nabs $40M to expand its cloud-native authorization tools

14. Commission-free trading app Stake secures $30M from Tiger Global to expand into Europe

15. Pizza robot-maker Picnic raises another $16.3M

16. Settle raises $15M from Kleiner Perkins to give e-commerce companies more working capital

17. Los Angeles D2C tea maker Tea Drops drinks in $5M

Image Credits: FashionNetwork.com