Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 06/25/2021

CHINA:

1. Chinese time spend on smartphone up 15% in 2021

2. China to ban large energy storage plants from using retired EV batteries

3. China’s Expenditure on Cloud Services Reached $6 billion in the First Quarter of 2021

4. China’s Silicon Valley Shenzhen issues new policies to cultivate its own e-commerce giant, boost local online retail industry

5. Chinese ridesharing giant Didi aims for $60 billion valuation in IPO

6. HeyTea to Complete New Round of Funding for $9.27 Billion

7. Meituan to Launch Food Delivery Butler Service for Restaurants, Speeding Growth of Take-away Services

8. Chinese tech giants Tencent, ByteDance smell opportunity brewing in cafe chains

9. Xinjiang-based solar panel material maker Daqo aims to raise US$773 million in Shanghai IPO, defying US import ban

10. HK’s SmartMore bags $200m in Series B round from Sequoia China, IDG, others

11. Sequoia-backed Jiangxing AI raises fresh funds for edge computing in China’s green push

12. Temasek, Taikang lead $60m Series C2 round for Chinese speech therapy firm OST

13. Taiwanese digital foodhall network 3 Square raises seed funding

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. JD.com-backed Pomelo launches branding platform for fashion brands

2. Tiger Global pours $65m into Indian edtech firm Classplus

3. India’s hygiene products firm Nobel Hygiene raises funding from SG’s Quadria Capital

4. Shopee prepares to open food delivery services in Malaysia

5. Carro launches AI-driven insurance and maintenance plan for drivers

CROSS-BORDER:

1. Renault chooses China’s Envision for Douai EV battery plant -sources

OVERSEAS:

1. Microsoft closes above $2 trillion market cap for the first time

2. Microsoft announces Windows 11, generally available by the holidays

3. Andreessen Horowitz launches $2.2 billion crypto fund and is ‘radically optimistic’ despite price fluctuations

4. IBM explores AI tools to spot, cut bias in online ad targeting

5. Korean fintech super app Toss’s valuation jumps 2.5x to over $7b after fresh fundraise

6. BuzzFeed announces plans to go public via SPAC, targets $1.5 billion valuation

7. TV ad tech company Innovid plans going public via SPAC

8. Visa to buy Swedish fintech Tink for $2.1 billion after abandoning Plaid takeover

9. Illumio, a provider of a SaaS platform offering automated enforcement against cyzerattacks, lands $225M

10. GOAT Group grabs $195M for sneaker marketplace

11. Six Months After Series A, Firebolt Strikes For $127M Series B

12. JW Player raises $100M to build subscriptions and other monetization tools around its video software

13. Blockchain platform Chainanalysis raises $100 mln, crosses $4 bln valuation

14. Accept.inc secures $90M in debt and equity to scale its digital mortgage lending platform

15. Tonkean raises $50M Series B to accelerate is no-code business automation service

16. Sanity raises $39M for its “use-anywhere” approach to content repositories

17. Logistics-Focused Financial Platform RoadSync Lands $30M Series B 

18. Sorbet scoops up $21M for PTO-to-cash platform

19. Orbion, manufacturer of in-space plasma propulsion systems, raises $20M Series B

20. Env0 lands $17M Series A as infrastrucure as code control plane gains traction

21. Paid Time Off startup Sorbet reels-in another $15M inside three months

22. Taptap Send gets $13.4M for a no-fee money transfer service aimed at price-conscious emerging market users

23. Psychedelic VR meditation startup Tripp raises $11 million Series A

24. After raising $10M, Ryte launches ‘Carbon KPI’ to measure the CO2 footprint of web sites

Image Credits: Pandaily