Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 2020/04/09

CHINA:

1. China to set up 46 new integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce to revive foreign trade

2. China’s Bubugao步步高-backed Imoo, a brand focusing on cellphone for learning, ships 26% of all smartwatches for kids

3. Following Luckin Coffee, TAL Education学而思教育, a K-12 after-school tutoring services provider, discloses sales fraud

4. Chinese cloud computing firm Qingcloud青云 eyes $168m STAR market IPO

5. China’s Huayin华银 Health closes $85m Series C round led by GL Capital Group

6. Alibaba-backed voice interaction company AISpeech closes USD 58 million Series E round

7. Sequoia-backed cosmetics ecommerce startup Meishang美商 closes USD 28.3 million Series A

8. Payments firm Ksher凯世 scores $10m in series A+ round led by MindWorks

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MOBILE-ONLY MARKETS:

1. Indonesia’s peer-to-peer fintech platform Investree bags USD 23.5 million from MUIP and BRI Ventures

2. Indian government warms to ecommerce as delivery workers lend a hand on the frontline

3. Indian agritech startup DeHaat secures $12m from Sequoia, others

4. Indian edtech startup Lido Learning closes $7.5m series B round led by Ant Financial-backed BAce

5. Thai venture builder Rise raises $8m in seed money to expand regionally

CROSS-BORDER:

1. Oyo fires “hundreds” in the US amid global restructuring and COVID-19

2. Japan’s SoftBank to invest $48m in Brazilian online retailer Petlove

3. Tencent Ramps up Investment in Philippine Fintech Startup Voyager Innovation

4. Bengaluru- based grocery delivery startup BigBasket raises up to $60m in bridge round from Alibaba阿里巴巴, others

OVERSEAS:

1. France is officially working on ‘Stop Covid’ contact-tracing app

2. Google quietly expands its AI chat agent Duplex to the U.K., Australia, and Canada

3. Google releases API to train smaller, faster AI models

4. Zoom sued by shareholder for ‘overstating’ security claims

5. A new startup Twine aims to end social isolation with its video chat app for deep conversations

6. Deliveroo, Graphcore and other big UK startups say they’re being cut out of COVID-19 lending relief

7. iFood merges with Delivery Hero’s Domicilios.com to challenge Rappi in Colombia

8. Ecommerce tech company Rakuten Mobile’s low-cost data plan fully launches in Japan

9. Builder.ai launches pre-packaged apps for small businesses hit by COVID-19

10. No-code automation platform Tonkean raises $24M from Lightspeed

11. Programmable fintech payments startup Sila raises $7.7M seed to wipe out ACH

Image Credits: TechCrunch