Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 2/15/2019

Overseas:

1. GM unveils ‘Ariv’ e-bikes, plans Europe launch in second quarter

2. U.S. negotiating multibillion-dollar fine with Facebook

3. Amazon drops plans for New York HQ2

4. Boston and NY share high-tech losses as GE and Amazon bail on same day

5. Facebook mulled multi-billion-dollar acquisition of gaming giant Unity

6. Walmart is putting trailers equipped with VR technology in its parking lots, with plans to bring it to stores

7. Cisco is taking on Huawei globally and winning its share of deals, CEO Chuck Robbins says

8. LEGO launches eight AR-focused sets

9. Amazon could launch Amazon Go store in London

10. Grover launches e-scooter subscription service

11. Peltarion raises $20M for its AI platform

12. Figma gets $40 million Series C to put design tools in the cloud

13. Biotech AI startup Sight Diagnostics gets $27.8M to speed up blood tests

14. Pinpoint grabs $13.5M Series A to bring data discipline to engineering

15. Teckro scores $25M Series C round to speed up clinical trials

16. Malt raises $28.6 million for its freelancer platform

17. Fitness startup Eastnine picks up £2M from LocalGlobe, Cherry Ventures, Niklas Zennström and others

18. StayTuned Digital helps video creators publish and measure everywhere

19. DriveNets emerges from stealth with $110M for its cloud-based alternative to network routers

China:

1. Alibaba said to take 8% stake in Chinese video platform Bilibili

2. Chinese surveillance camera supplier Hikvision posts slowest profit growth in a decade

3. Chinese high school students create daring sex education game, earning positive reviews on Steam

4. Chinese Scientists Have Created an Air-Purifying Window Screen

5. Baidu’s Smart Welfare Intentions May Be Blocked by Lack of Permits

6. Rumors of Douyu’s US IPO Are True, Source Close to Tencent-Backed Live Streamer Says

7. Suning 苏宁 established a FMCG group to accelerate the integration of the supply chain.

Cross-border:

1. Alibaba’s Ant Financial buys UK currency exchange giant WorldFirst reportedly for around $700M

2. TikTok spotted testing native video ads in US

3. Southeast Asia’s budget hotel aggregator chain OYO gets US$100M from China’s Didi Chuxing

Blockchain:

1. JP Morgan is rolling out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency to transform payments business

2. Atrium, Justin Kan’s legal tech startup, launches a fintech and blockchain division

Emerging Market:

1. Israeli software firm DriveNets raises $110 million in first funding round

2. Circles.Life, the Singaporean mobile data plan operator, raises Series C from Sequoia India to expand abroad

3. Indonesia’s trader platform Stockbit acquires mutual fund app Bibit 

Cover picture credits from TechCrunch