China:
1. Ant Financial Services considers applying for Singapore Virtual Banking Licence
2. Pinduoduo to help foster and host 500 agricultural supply chain brands on its platform
4. This AI bot by the Tree Hole Bot team finds suicidal messages on China’s Weibo to help save lives
5. Chinese HR SaaS provider CDP files for $125m New York IPO
6. Instant video sharing service platform VPhoto raised 100 million RMB in Series B round
7. Chinese logistics service provider Shangqiao 商桥物流 raises $14M Series A++ round
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Mobile-only Markets:
1. Amadeus Ventures to invest in Asia’s traveltech startups from 2020
Cross-Border:
1. India becomes largest contributor to ByteDance-owned TikTok’s 1.5 billion downloads globally
2. Grab officially announces cab-hailing tie-up in Japan, Middle East
Overseas:
1. Google acquires CloudSimple to bolster cloud workload migration
2. Apple launches a dedicated mobile app for its developer community
3. Bing taps AI to improve image search results
4. Elavon to acquire Sage Pay, a gateway that competes with Stripe, PayPal and Adyen, for $300M
5. Australian fintech startup Tyro eyes raising up to $173m in IPO
6. News aggregation app SmartNews raises $92M at a $1.2B valuation
7. Aerospike secures $32 million Series D to further grow its high-scale NoSQL database platform
8. Home insurance startup Luko raises $22 million for AI that reduces domestic accidents
9. French startup Luko raises $22 million to improve home insurance
10. Wayve, U.K. startup developing AI to teach cars to drive autonomously, raises $20 million
11. Headstart raises $7 million for AI that tackles recruitment bias
12. Ride-hailing service Heetch adds $4 million to its $38 million Series B round
13. Logistics startup Ohi raises $2.75M to power same-day delivery for brands that aren’t Amazon
14. Bolt Bikes launches e-bike subscription platform for gig delivery workers in US, UK
Image Credits: 36Kr