Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 3/28/2019

Overseas:

1. Sony announced what’s next for PlayStation with a Nintendo-style presentation called ‘State of Play’

2. Palantir wins $800 million contract to build the U.S. Army’s next battlefield software system

3. Proxy raises Series A $13.6M to unlock anything with Bluetooth identity

4. Electronic instrument maker startup Artiphon raises $2M round led by Warner Music

5. Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp acqui-hired LemonStand, a Shopify competitor

6. Twitch launches a four-person ‘Squad Stream’ feature to help creators get discovered

7. Grocery delivery service provider Instacart rolls out an Instant Cashout feature for shoppers

8. Enterprise drone service Kespry raises new funding from Salesforce Ventures

9. FarmWise turns to Roush to build autonomous vegetable weeders

10. GameStop is doubling down on its investment in surging esports industry

11. How retailers and brands are illustrating VR’s potential in sales, employee training, and product development

China:

1. Alibaba, Tencent and other major names form $1.45B ride-hailing venture

2. oBike owner eyes acquisition of Mobike’s international ops

3. Kuaishou 快手 released new “Youth Mode”

4. Google-backed AI startup Mobvoi 出门问问 said to seek pre-IPO funding at $1b valuation

5. Tesla rival in China Xpeng Motors 小鹏汽车 wants at least $500 million in funding, and it may try a US IPO

6. Food supply chain startup Lehe Food 乐禾食品 received 100 million rounds of B financing

7. Pan-entertainment consumer company “Twelve Cultures” 十二栋文化 received nearly RMB 100m financing

8. Chinese healthcare crowdfunding platform Shuidichou 水滴筹 snags $74m Series B

9. Online counseling agency “Pineapp Online” 菠萝在线 completed tens of millions of A round of financing

10. DMAI 暗物智能科技 Completes Tens of Million Dollars Pre-A Round Financing

Cross-border:

1. New developments in fintech are hitting Southeast Asia in waves, only US$50b (1.7%) of total economy is digital

2. Ant Financial leads the BLUE Mobile series C fundraising to create a new retail and financial platform in Southeast Asia

3. E-retailer Lazada looks to boost financial services to gain an edge in South East Asia’s competitive online retail market

Emerging Market:

1. Ecommerce solution Shopmatic acquires brick-and-mortar solutions specialist Octopus to become omnichannel retail player; expects 2020 profitability

2. Indian online hotel brand Oyo said to acquire Chinese rival Qianyu

3. Sequoia, Accel lead $9m round in Indian B2B tech startup Zetwerk

4. B2B foodtech startup Zeemart snags S$7m seed funding led by Indonesian listed investment firm Kresna Graha Investama

5. Indian student housing startup Stanza Living raises $4.4m in debt funding from Alteria Capital

Cover picture credits from TechCrunch.