Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 5/1/2019

Overseas:

1. Alphabet had more than $70 billion in market cap wiped out, and it says YouTube is one of the problems

2. UiPath nabs $568M at a $7B valuation to bring robotic process automation to the front office

3. Union Square Ventures closes on $450M for new funds, adds two partners

4. Altice USA buys digital news network Cheddar for $200M

5. Utah’s Divvy raises $200M to eliminate expense reports

6. Glovo, the on-demand ‘deliver anything’ local app, raises $169M Series D

7. Spot.IM raises $25M to help publishers engage with readers

8. Perkbox, the employee experience platform, raises £13.5M

9. Prisma Labs raises $6M for its AI-powered approach to visual editing

10. Vault Platform raises $4.2M to fix workplace misconduct reporting

11. Small Door raises $3.5 million in seed funding to rethink veterinary care

12. Creative Commons launches its search engine out of beta, with over 300M images indexed

13. Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s opens UK’s first checkout-free store

China:

1. Food delivery platforms push into lower-tier cities as users from first-tier cities fell by 6% last year, while users in third and fourth-tier cities increased by 5.8%

2. Bytedance acquires database company Terark to optimize its existing content platforms

3. Tencent-backed Waterdrop seeks financing at over $1b valuation

4. Zhongli Sports 全立体育 completed tens of millions of Pre-A round financing, with a post-investment valuation of 60 million yuan

Cross-border:

1. Colombian On-Demand Delivery Unicorn Rappi Raises $1B From SoftBank

2. India unseats China as Asia’s top fintech funding source with $285.6 million

3. Amazon launches new Middle East marketplace, and rebrands Souq, the company it bought for $580 million in 2017

4. Amazon battles Rakuten for e-commerce market share in Japan

Emerging Market:

1. GrabFood Thailand to expand to 6 cities as orders hit 4 million

2. Malaysia’s Axiata Digital sells venture portfolio for $140m to Singapore’s Pegasus

3. Pakistani ride-sharing startup Bykea raises $5.7m in series A round

4. Nigerian startup Tizeti launches WifiCall.ng IP voice call service

Cover picture credits to TechCrunch.