SEA
Singapore’s oBike ceased operations in the city-state from Monday due to difficulties in meeting the new requirements to solve messy parking. (Channel NewsAsia)
Alibaba is in the process of acquiring Indonesian fintech startup Cermati which allows customers to find and buy financial products on its platform. (Deal Street Asia)
Go-Jek announced it will kick off its services in Vietnam and Thailand respectively under the names of Go-Viet and Get. (TechCrunch)
Chinese facial recognition startup Megvii is expanding into Southeast Asian countries, appointing a distributor in Thailand and talking with commercial banks and building managers to deploy its software. (SCMP)
Grab may soon open its platform to third-party services to build an “everyday app”. The ride-hailing giant is said to announce the first batch of service providers soon. (SCMP)
IFC has proposed to inject as much as $7 million in Thailand’s online insurance platform Roojai. (Deal Street Asia)
To expand in Southeast Asia, Startup incubator EFI Hub looks to raise $2-5 million. It will start with the Singaporean and Indonesian markets. (Deal Street Asia)
Kuala Lumpur-headquartered SaaS-based HR and payroll software startup PayrollPanda has raised $700k in a seed round to launch in other markets in the region. (e27)
China
Ofo co-founder YU Xin denied the rumor that Didi Chuxing has acquired the bike-sharing startup. (Sina)
Xiaomi acknowledges that its suppliers may cause environmental pollution. (Technode)
Leveraging the blockchain technology, Ant Financial aims to lower the cost of remitting money overseas. (SCMP)
Citi plans to kick off its smart chatbot in Hong Kong by the end of 2018, allowing citizens to check bank accounts via Facebook Messenger. (SCMP)
Toutiao sued Baidu for unfair competition, asking for apology and a RMB10 million compensation. (Awtmt)
China Renaissance Group has reportedly filed for an $800 million HK IPO. (TMTPost)
Meituan-Dianping’s net loss has halved from USD 904 million in 2015 to USD 436 million in 2017, according to its prospectus. (36Kr)
Chinese unicorns prefer Hong Kong as their listing revenue according to a recent survey. (SCMP)
Rest of Asia
Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners co-led an $8.98 million round in India’s Wicked Ride, a motorbike and scooter rental platform. (Inc42)
World
Uber appeals a ruling which denied its license to operate in London. Regulators in London refused to renew Uber’s license last September, stating that the ride-hailing company failed to report serious criminal offenses and to conduct background checks on drivers. (Reuters)
Gadgets
Xiaomi launched Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro on Sunday. The device has a 5.84-inch 19:9 display, a dual rear camera, an octa-core Snapdragon 625 SoC, and a 4000mAh battery. (Gadgets360)
Good News Bad News
Singapore’s target of rolling out the 5G network by 2020 is picking up pace. M1 and Huawei announced they will conduct a live demonstration of a 360-degree VR content broadcast by the end of the month. (Bangkok Post)
