Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 3/29/2019

Overseas:

1. Consumer spending in apps to reach $156B across iOS and Google Play by 2023

2. Investment platform Ellevest raises $33M Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Valerie Jarrett & PayPal

3. U.S. charges Facebook with racial discrimination in targeted housing ads

4. Lyft raises IPO price target as investor fret over missing out

5. Google, GM and other corporate giants form alliance to create a boom in US clean energy

6. Volkswagen chooses Amazon’s cloud service to help it build cars

7. Facebook launches searchable transparency library of all active ads

8. Twitter introduces a battery-saving ‘Lights Out’ dark-mode option

10. Lightning Motorcycles unveils Strike e-moto, with up to 200-mile range

China:

1. Huawei sales cross US$100 billion mark in 2018 as consumer business group becomes biggest contributor

2. Bytedance invests in celebrity and KOL management agency

3. Qutoutiao’s stock soars after Alibaba’s $171 million convertible loan investment

4. WeChat denies report that user chat data was used for targeted ads

5. Tencent leads $296 million Series D round in Chinese big data solutions provider MiningLamp Technology

6. WeChat’s new mini-program logistics linkup raises e-commerce stakes

7. ZTE Corp shares surge 14 percent, forecasts first-quarter rebound

8. Alibaba acquires Chinese productivity app Teambition

9. Hong Kong hands out virtual bank licenses as it disrupts traditional banking

10. JD Cloud lands exclusive rights to ‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ in China

11. Chinese Share-Pledger Yoozoo 游族 Gets Bailed Out by Fujian Government Fund

12. AliCloud Signs Up Shanghai Data Center Services Firm to Sell Products

13. Meituan Founder Wang Xing plans to introduce an Amazon Prime-like subscription service in China

14. Rela, a Chinese lesbian dating app, exposed 5 million user profiles

15, Social fitness app Keep launched mini program Keeplite to deliver light food

Cross-border:

1. Amazon Web Services to open Latin America computer center in Colombia

2. Sony to close smartphone plant in China to cut costs

3. Indian tech-driven hotel brand Oyo said to acquire Chinese rival Qianyu

Emerging Market:

1. The digital gifting and loyalty platform UrBox Vietnam raised seed funding from two Vietnamese VCs

2. Indonesian e-commerce giant  Tokopedia, Universitas Indonesia launch AI research centre

3. E-sports startup GamingMonk attracts strategic investment from Japanese company GameWith

4. Online payments services company Paytm raising up to $2B from SoftBank Vision Fund and Ant Financial

5. Indian grocery e-tailer BigBasket becomes India’s latest unicorn with $150m raise

6. Automotive marketplace Carro launches car subscription service in Singapore

Cover picture credits from 36Kr.