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Alibaba is back on U.S. blacklist of “notorious marketplaces”
The USTR dropped its annual blacklist calling out marketplaces that are rife with counterfeit and pirated goods this week. Many of the shopping centers and sites listed in this “Special 301” report were absolutely predictable, like Beijing’s Silk Market, St. Petersburg-based social network VK.com, or The Pirate Bay, which was formed by an anti-copyright group in the… Read More
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New regulations could limit Didi’s taxi on-demand service in China’s top cities
There’s trouble in China for ride-sharing services after authorities in Beijing and Shanghai instituted new regulations that forbid people not officially registered as living in either city from working for services like Didi Chuxing or Uber. Read More
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iPrice raises $4M for its e-commerce aggregator service in Southeast Asia
iPrice, an 18-month old e-commerce aggregation service that’s active in seven countries in Southeast Asia, has closed a $4 million Series A funding round. Read More
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Microsoft’s plan to use machine learning to improve eyecare in India
Competition that results in better care for people suffering from visual impairments is the right kind of competition. Following a path similar to that of Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft India announced this morning that it’s launching a new research group, the Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare, to bring data-driven eyecare services to India. Whereas DeepMind’s… Read More
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Enemies no longer, Uber strikes partnership with Indonesia’s second largest taxi firm
Uber is the scourge of taxi drivers worldwide, but sometimes the two can pull in the same direction. Like in Indonesia today, for example, where Uber inked a partnership with the country’s second largest taxi cab provider, Express Group, to allow its drivers to use the on-demand service to boost their income. Read More
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OS builder Thundersoft buys UI maker Rightware for $68M to expand in automotive
Thundersoft, a company out of China that designs operating systems for drones and other connected devices, has made an acquisition to drive deeper into automotive technology: it has paid €64 million ($68 million; RMB471 million) for Rightware, a company out of Helsinki that develops graphical user interfaces for connected devices, with a special focus on automotive: its Kanzi product… Read More
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Online Korean beauty retailer Memebox raises $60M more to sharpen its focus on the U.S.
Memebox, a Y Combinator startup that sells Korean beauty products in the U.S. and Asia, has raised $60 million. The cash is an extension of the firm’s Series C round which initially closed at $65.95 million in August. Read More
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India’s NoBroker raises $7M more to connect home owners with buyers and renters directly
NoBroker, the India-based property startup that wants to make property agents obsolete, has landed $7 million in fresh funding to expand its service. Read More
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Twitter reportedly developed, then killed off, a messaging app for emerging markets
After years of speculation, it appears that Twitter did actually develop a messaging app of its own. But, two caveats, it was intended for emerging markets and it was killed off before ever being released to the masses. Read More
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Selfie app maker underwhelms in largest Hong Kong tech IPO since 2007
Hong Kong’s largest tech IPO for nearly a decade went off with a fizzle rather than a bang today. Meitu, the company behind more than a dozen beautification apps, raised $629 million but its hotly-anticipated listing fell flat. Read More
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Codementor raises $1.6 million to become elite marketplace for freelance developers
Codementor (incorporated as Peer Idea Inc.) has raised $1.6 million in seed funding to grow its online education business into a marketplace for elite freelance developers who are among the top-rated mentors on its site. Based in Mountain View with a development office in Taiwan, Codementor is a graduate of Techstars in Seattle. WI Harper led the seed round in Codementor, which had… Read More
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Samsung changes migrant worker guidelines after finding abuses in its supply chain
Samsung has said it has terminated the contract of one of the labor supply companies it works with in Malaysia following an investigation after media reports last month alleged serious abuses of working conditions among the contracted workers. Read More
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Honda invests in Southeast Asia-based Uber rival Grab
Southeast Asia’s Grab, a ridesharing rival to Uber, has welcomed a new backer after Honda announced an undisclosed investment in the company today. Read More
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Podotree, Korean chat app Kakao’s content business, raises $107M at a $428M valuation
Kakao, the Korean mobile and web giant, is beefing up its social media and content businesses after its Podotree affiliate raised 125 billion won (around $107 million). The deal values it at 500 billion won, Kakao confirmed — that’s approximately $428 million. Read More
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Ruvento raises new seed fund to invest in hardware across Singapore, China and the U.S.
Today, Ruvento is announcing a new $25 million seed fund for hardware startups in need of capital from Singapore, China and the U.S. The fund, managed by Slava Solonitsyn and Alex Toh, will write 70 percent of its checks between $100k and $500k. The rest of the capital will be reserved for follow-on investments of up to $2 million. Ruvento is not the first investor to take a… Read More
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Musical.ly defends its handling of young users, as it races past 40M MAUs
The CEO of Musical.ly, the lip syncing app that’s become a major with youngster worldwide, has defended the way it manages its users, some of whom are younger than 13 years, while also revealing that the service now has over 40 million monthly active users. Read More
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Emotibot wants to help chatbots know how you really feel
Emotional intelligence is a hard thing to achieve, even in humans. But it’s especially difficult in robots, and maybe even more so in chatbots, whose available tools for picking up on emotional cues are quite limited. Emotibot is a Chinese startup focused on making sure personal assistants, chatbots and virtual customer service agents can accurately understand the emotional state of… Read More
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Didi’s CTO explains why China’s ride-sharing giant has a data advantage
China’s Didi Chuxing made headlines this year when it announced along with Uber that it would be taking over Uber’s business in its own country. Uber’s sale of its Chinese business included taking a 5.89 percent stake in Didi, and as Didi disentangles Uber China from the rest of the Uber network this week, we spoke to Didi co-founder and CTO Bob Zhang about what the company… Read More
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