Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 2020/03/10

CHINA:

1. China unveils stricter rules for facial recognition tech

2. ByteDance prepares release of its first self-developed casual mobile game

3. Alibaba taps China’s online education market with latest homework-helper app Bangbangda 帮帮答 (“Help Me Answer”  

4. Alihealth offers online consultation for overseas Chinese via Alipay, as coronavirus spreads globally

5. Tencent’s WeChat to Release Night Mode

6. Taiwan Life Insurance commits to invest $20m in two Lightspeed Venture funds

7. Softbank-backed Ziroom 自如 to cut execs’ pay to halve rent for over 44,000 tenants

8. Service Robot Maker Keenon Robotics Raises RMB 200M in B Round of Financing

9. Beijing-based space technology company Minospace snags nearly $14m in Series A2 round

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. Openspace Ventures to raise $200m for third fund

2. Singapore recruitment platform Sama nets $1.2m from Antler, others

3. Singapore logistics startup Moovaz receives series A funding from YCH Group venture arm SCAngels

4. Indonesian waste management startup Waste4Change raises funds from Agaeti, East Ventures, SMDV

5. Vietnam’s e-commerce startup Leflair accused of owing US$2M to suppliers

6. Bengaluru- and Shanghai-based fintech startup Karbon Card nabs $2m in seed funding

CROSS-BORDER:

1. US-based VC firm Quona Capital closes second fintech-focused fund at $203m, focusing on fintech in emerging markets

2. Apple sells fewer than 500,000 smartphones in China in February amid coronavirus

3. Visa partners with Paga on payments and fintech for Africa and abroad

4. Australian edtech firm Zookal raises nearly $10m to scale in Southeast Asia

OVERSEAS:

1. Google launches TensorFlow Quantum, a machine learning framework for training quantum models

2. Google blocks visitors to Silicon Valley and New York offices, asks more staff to work from home

3. Amazon tells employees in New York and New Jersey to work from home as coronavirus spreads

4. Amazon is now selling its cashierless store technology to other retailers

5. Zapier CEO Wade Foster on scaling a remote team up to 300 employees

6. Silver Lake makes $1B investment into Twitter; Twitter, Elliott call truce as Dorsey remains CEO

7. Reddit takes on Twitter with its first trending ad product, the Trending Takeover

8. MUFG Capital joins Zurich-based Numab Therapeutics’ $22.6m Series B

9. London Proptech Startup Goodlord Raises $13.1M To Streamline The Rental Process

10. Coursedog lands $4.2 million to make class scheduling smarter

11. Japanese HR tech startup Laboratik closes $2m pre-series A

Image Credits: TechCrunch