Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 2020/01/16

CHINA:

1. Guangzhou announces plans for an AI zone in a bid to get ahead in the digital economy

2. China’s EV market prospects a long-term positive: UBS

3. JD, Baidu, other Chinese tech giants reportedly eye Hong Kong listings

4. Xiaomi rolls out exclusive, low-priced 5G data packages to boost smartphone sales

5. China’s internet companies, such as Douyin and Kuaishou, invest billions in virtual red packets for Lunar New Year as they vie for more traffic

6. China’s Canaan Creative, the world’s second-largest maker of cryptocurrency mining hardwar, will release its second AI chip this year

7. Huawei Sold More 5G Phones Than Samsung in 2019

8. Huawei Remains China’s Most Successful Patent Applicant

9. WeChat rolls out paywall feature for official accounts

10. Xiaohongshu opens to more sellers to speed up monetization

11. There are over 80million 5G users in China; China Telecom

12. Cybersecurity SaaS company Juming Network 聚铭网络 secured investment from Tencent

13. Computer Vision technology company Clobotics secured USD$10million in Pre-B+, led by Tiger Global.

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. Indonesian P2P lender Akseleran bags $8.6m in Beenext-led round

2. Hospitality chain startup OYO confirms staff layoffs in India

3. Developer school Hacktiv8 gets US$3M in Pre-Series A to offer income-sharing loan to graduates

CROSS-BORDER:

1. Amazon to invest $1 billion to help digitize small businesses in India

2. China trade deal has new provisions to safeguard US tech secrets

3. TikTok partners with video-on-demand service iFlix to reach audiences in Southeast Asia

4. 23andMe co-founder’s new startup, Precise.ly, brings genomics to India through Narayana partnership

5. French mobile payment app Lydia raises $45 million round led by Tencent

6. Turkish pricing intelligence startup Prisync to double down on APAC growth initiatives with US$1M funding

OVERSEAS:

1. Felix Capital closes $300M fund to double down on DTC, break into fintech and make late-stage deals

2. Amazon orders electric vans from Deutsche Post’s StreetScooter

3. Rogers Communications begins roll out of 5G network in major Canadian cities

4. Apple buys an A.I. start-up Xnor that came from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s research lab

5. Spotify launches playlists for dogs left home alone

6. Mozilla lays off 70 as it waits for new products to generate revenue

7. Uber kicks off adaptive electric scooter pilot in SF

8. Joby Aviation raises $590 million led by Toyota to launch an electric air taxi service

9. Spain’s Banco Sabadell hires IBM for 1 billion euro IT upgrade

10. Brazilian fintech Ebanx launches digital wallets for consumers

11. NextNav raises $120M to deploy its indoor positioning tech to find people in skyscrapers

12. Accel-backed Clockwise launches an AI assistant for Google Calendar

13. Customer data platform ActionIQ raises $32M

14. Austin-based FlashParking raises $60 million for parking management technolog

15. Verbit raises $31M Series B to expand its transcription and captioning service

16. Zinier raises $90M to automate field service management

17. Insurify raises $23M Series A to add new coverage varietals, boost its marketing efforts

18. Anyline, the Austrian startup that provides OCR tech, picks up $12M Series A and heads to the US

19. Oviva scores $21M Series B to bring its digital diabetes treatment to more of Europe

Image Credits: Technode