Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 4/15/2019

Overseas:

1. Trump, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unveil plan to accelerate 5G rollout

2. Apple and Qualcomm’s Global Fight Heads to Court in San Diego

3. Bird will launch electric scooters in 50+ European cities, increasing its European fleet size more than ten-fold

4. Amazon-owned game-streaming site Twitch launches its first game to public, a karaoke-style ‘Twitch Sings’ 

5. Publicis announces $4.4 billion deal to acquire data marketing company Epsilon

6. Password manager Dashlane closes on $30M, adds former Spotify CMO to board

7. LumApps raises $24M Series B for its ‘social intranet’

8. SOSV MOX Batch 5 Portfolio Fleksy is getting a store to put mini apps at chatters’ fingertips using AI keyboard

China:

1. Chinese regulators shut down 33,600 apps, target gaming and education

2. Huawei is ‘open’ to selling 5G chips to Apple for iPhones, marking a big shift in strategy

3. Facial recognition comes to express delivery in Chinese cities, announced by Cainiao Network 菜鸟网络

4. Automotive company ENOVATE 天际汽车 completed more than $2 billion worth of fundraising

5. Troubled P2P lender Dianrong 点融 looks to raise $100 million

6. Kunlun 昆仑, backer of Musical.ly, Grindr and Opera to invest $50M in self-driving startup Pony.ai

7. Vehicle driver system provider Anzhi Auto 安智汽车 completed tens of millions of A+ round financing

8. Pet health management platform Tips 小贴士 received millions of dollars in financing

9. SOSV Chinaccelerator Batch 12 Portfolio ExpoPromoter secures new $1m round of investment for big push in China

10. Alibaba-backed used goods platform Idle Fish 闲鱼 investing in creating quality content

Cross-border:

1. US scooter-sharing service Lime picks Singapore as regional HQ

2. Naspers-owned payments company PayU doubles down on India with $70M deal to buy Wibmo

3. Insurtech NTUC Income joins hand with Chinese insurer ZhongAn 众安保险 for Singapore scaleup

Mobile:

1. China’s smartphone shipments down 4.1% in March to 26.94 million units

Emerging Market:

1. Mastercard, Kuok Ventures, SGInnovate invest in AI startup AIDA Technologies

2. Malaysian fintech startup MoneyMatch closes pre-series A round

3. Fore Coffee raises an additional US$1M, aims hyper-expansion in Indonesia

Cover picture credits to ChinaDaily.