Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 3/21/2019

Overseas:

1. Disney closes its $71.3B Fox acquisition

2. Amify raises its first venture round on a promise: to boost revenue for third party sellers on Amazon

4. Google fined $1.7 billion for search ad blocks in third EU sanction

5. At IPO road show, Lyft executives look to lower insurance costs

6. Nvidia partners with SoftBank to deploy cloud gaming servers in Japan

7. Amazon is launching Belei, its first skin care line, as it pushes further into private-label products

8. Starbucks will anchor the new $400 million food-focused Valor Siren Ventures fund

9. Volvo to add in-car sensors to prevent drunk driving

10. Cloud services provider Fastly taps bank for IPO

11. Toyota, Suzuki charge up partnership for electric cars

12. Ford to build new factory in Michigan for autonomous vehicles

13. Skedulo raises $28M for its mobile workforce management service

14. Movius raises $45M for its business communications service

15. Opendoor raises $300M on a $3.8B valuation for its home marketplace

16. PicsArt hits 130 million MAUs as Chinese flock to its photo editing app

17. Skymind raises $11.5M to bring deep learning to more enterprises

18. Music’s next big startup Splice raises $57.5M to sell samples

19. Welcome Pickups lands €3.3M funding to offer ‘in-destination’ travel services

20. Blameless emerges from stealth with $20M investment to help companies transition to SRE

21. Portworx raises $27M Series C for its cloud-native data management platform

22. Abstract, a versioning platform that helps designers work like developers, raises $30M

China:

1. Foxconn Ventures sells $398.4 million in Alibaba stock

2. Xiaomi weathers China smartphone slowdown but growth worries hit shares

3. Spotify rival Tencent Music posts maiden quarter loss of $130M on one-off costs

4. Chinese AI start-up Megvii said to plan IPO in either Hong Kong or New York to raise up to US$800 million

5. Shanghai University of Engineering Science Is First Chinese College to Install Full 5G Coverage

6. China Unicom Partners Chinese Academy of Sciences on 5G-Based Remote Sensing

7. Alibaba Teams With Aisino to Build Blockchain Lab for Online Invoicing

8. Meitu will shut down the smartphone business completely in 2019

Cross-border:

Xiaomi Launches Mi Pay in India, announces 7th manufacturing plant under “Make in India” to boost production by 50%

Emerging Market:

1. Race is on for tech companies like Grab, Ant Financial to gain an edge in SE Asia’s financial services market

2. The AI service provider for advertising, HR, and influencer marketing AnyMind Group closes Series B funding at a total of US$21M

3. The Philippines rejects Go-Jek’s appeal for ride-hailing licence

4. Online trucking logistics company Kargo receives over US$130K from Yoma Bank

5. Indonesian auto platform Mobilkamu raises Series A funding round

6. e-Wallet OVO partners with Taralite, Bareksa, Do-It to further financial inclusion 

7. Singapore fund Sistema Asia Fund sells its stake in India’s Qwikcilver to Pine Labs

Cover picture credits from ComingSoon.Net