Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 2019/7/4

Overseas:

1. SaaS stocks near record highs as the second half of 2019 Kicks off

2. VC firm Upfront Ventures to raise its third growth-stage investment fund to 250M$

3. E.ventures, the global early-stage venture fund, has raised $400 million more from investors

4. Sony announces a new $185M fund to invest in tech startups

5. Facebook open-sources DLRM, a deep learning recommendation model

6. Walmart’s e-commerce business is reportedly racking up $1 billion in losses and that’s only one issue

7. Deutsche Telekom first to market in Germany with limited 5G rollout

8. App revenue tops $39 billion in first half of 2019, up 15% from first half of last year

9. Klaus, the ‘conversation review’ tool for support teams, picks up $1.9M seed

10. Podimo raises €6M to become Europe’s ‘Netflix for podcasts’

China:

1. Beijing will replace all taxis with electric cars in two years

2. Alipay’s waste-sorting guides hit 1 million users in 3 days

3. Alipay is launching a beauty filter for facial recognition payments

4. Baidu and Geely partner to accelerate AI use in autos

5. Baidu Cloud Engine 百度智能云 announcing new offensive strategy for the Cloud computing market by combining Cloud and AI

6. Xiaohongshu 小红书, Ele.me饿了么 and NetEase Kaola网易考拉 accused of harvesting user data

7. Veehui 微医汇 to provide learning content for doctors through live broadcasting of academic conferences and paid videos

8. IQYI 爱奇艺 to change its marketing model for “big internet movies” (网络大电影) adding a joint marketing component

Cross-Border:

1. Unicorns need to end costly reliance on promotions, say pricing experts

2. Vivo launches new massive battery smartphone Z1 Pro in India

Emerging Market:

1. e27 partners with Blackstorm Consulting to help tech startups go-to-market in Southeast Asia

2. Logistics SaaS platform GoComet secures US$2.2M Series A funding

3. Indonesian trucking startup Ritase raises $8.5m Series A led by Golden Gate

4. Thai car listing platform SiamCarDeal raises US$300K led by 500 TukTuks

5. Bruneian legacy planning startup Memori raises seed funding from Asian royals

6. Referral proptech platform UrbanAgents secures US$1.5M from FarSight Capital, APAC Realty

Image credits: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay