Chinaccelerator Daily Digest 5/23/2019

Overseas:

1. Global auto sales slow after a decade of growth, with companies having announced at least 38,000 job cuts in the past 6 months

2. Ireland Data Protection Commission Launches Probe Into Google Ad Data Practices

3. Salesforce Ventures Doubles Down On Europe With New $125M Fund

4. Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition sale ban to governments

5. Alphabet will open smart city buildings in Toronto as early as 2023, and Google will eventually move in

6. Tesla drops for sixth straight session, down 20% since share offer

7. Samsung’s AI animates paintings and photos without 3D modeling

8. Ford and startup Agility Robotics are partnering to team up both two-legged robots and self-driving cars for deliveries

9. Twitter Is Experimenting With Different Ad Loads for Different People

10. Zendesk acquires Smooch, doubles down on support via messaging apps like WhatsApp

11. Diamondback’s Rattler Raises $665 Million in Biggest Energy IPO of 2019

12. Roku launches new ad tool to compare linear and streaming audiences

13. Bill.com launches AI platform for automated payments processing

14. TransferWise, which provides money transfer service, now valued at $3.5B following a new $292M secondary round

15. Fintech startup N26 faces banking regulator order about fraudulent transactions

16. Online investment platform Wealthsimple raises $75 million and says it’s closer on path toward an IPO

17. KaiOS raises $50M, hits 100M handsets powered by its feature phone OS

18. Modsy scores $37M in Series C funding to virtually redesign your home

19. Agtech startup Agrilyst is now Artemis, raises $8M Series A

20. Equifax, which specializes in data analytics for consumer reporting, just became the first company to have its outlook downgraded for a cyber attack

21. Loot, the UK digital current account for students and millennials, enters administration after a potential sale falls through

22. Amazing AI: Four interesting breakthroughs in language processing, scientific research and computer vision

China:

1. Tencent revamps education business with “Tencent Education”, launches learning-focused AI lab

2. Tencent Leads $250 Million Round in Chinese Travel Site Mafengwo

3. Fintech JV firm of CITIC, Baidu said to seek up to $1b private funding

4. Tencent partnered with 17,000 companies for WeChat Work ecosystem

5. Japanese economic news Nikkei announced that 36Kr has become a global partner, both will collaborate globally on news content

6. Internet medical brand Yutai Wangluo 芸泰网络 has completed more than 100m from its Series B financing

7. Chinese cloud service provider Wangdiantong 旺店通 bags $14.4m to expand company’s retail digital solutions

8. Beauty and consumer electronics brand DOCO 丹蔻颜究 raised millions from its angel round financing, lead by Baoding VC 宝顶创投基金

Cross-border:

1. US mulls adding five more China video surveillance firms to blacklist

2. Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani to challenge Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Walmart’s Flipkart in India with his own e-commerce platform Reliance Retail

3. International Finance Corporation sets aside $300m to invest in Indonesia’s tourism-related firms

4. SoftBank-owned British chip designer Arm cuts ties with Huawei

Emerging Market:

1. Indonesia restricts WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram usage following deadly riots

2. Venture funding in Brazil soars to $1.3b in 2018, representing nearly two-thirds of all venture money raised in Latin America in the entire year

3. Digital entertainment and ecommerce company Sea triples ‘adjusted revenue,’ closes in on profitability with USD $579m

4. Ola suspends Foodpanda India delivery, cuts staff after acquiring it 18 months ago

5. Indian used cars platform Spinny raises $13.2m in series A

6. Food delivery startup Dahmakan eats up $5M for expansion in Southeast Asia

Image credit: TechCrunch