Overseas:
1. Alphabet’s Verily gets $1 billion in funding round led by Silver Lake
2. Apple stock has dropped 38 percent in 90 days
3. Apple’s App Store pulled in $1.22B over the holidays plus a record $322M on New Year’s
4. Qualcomm enforces ban to halt some Apple iPhone sales in Germany
5. Pokémon GO creator Niantic closes $190M funding round
6. GM Cruise and DoorDash are partnering on autonomous food deliveries
7. GE adds a bunch of Google Assistant-friendly smart home products
8. Roku to launch subscription video channels business
9. Synapse raises $6M to bring neural net weapon detection to x-ray machines
10. Auto marketplace CarDekho grabs $110M to double down on insurance and financial services
11. Vengo, maker of touch-screen vending machines, just collected $7 million in fresh equity funding
12. Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise platform, adds another major customer, Nestlé
13. PR management firm Cision is acquiring Falcon.io to expand into social media marketing
China:
1. Tencent AI Lab loses key executive Zhang Tong
2. Lightspeed announces new $560 million fund for China
3. China’s loss-making start-up Luckin Coffee doubles down on subsidies to win customers from Starbucks
5. Education company Meten English 美联英语 secured 300Million RMB in C round.
Emerging Market:
1. Vietnam’s FastGo commences operation in Myanmar
2. Carmen Automotive’s predictive tech prevents unexpected vehicle breakdowns; raises US$730K
3. Mobile-focussed recruitment platform GrabJobs raises US$930K
4. Home vacation rentals startup Luxstay secures US$3M bridge round funding
Cover picture credits from TechCrunch