SEA
Philippine conglomerate GT Capital announced it would buy Toyota Motor’s shares which are worth as much as $201.6 million. (Deal Street Asia)
Southeast Asia fashion startup Zilingo is looking to raise another $50 million at a $400 million valuation, just barely more than 2 months after its last Series C round (KrASIA)
Singapore-listed M1 seeks to acquire AsiaPac Distribution, an IT device and service provider, for $14.66 million, according to a stock filing. (Deal Street Asia)
China
Inke plans to raise HK$1.21 billion in a HK IPO on July 12. The company claims it’s China’s second-largest live-streaming platform by revenue in 2017. (Technode)
Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Taobao opens its second Taobao Xinxuan store in Shanghai, selling daily necessities to consumers. (Technode)
NetEase plans to expand the content of its online comics business to drive growth. (SCMP)
Uxin, China’s used-car online marketplace, sees growing demand in smaller Chinese cities. The company accounts for about 40% of the Chinese online used-car sales according to consulting firm iResearch. (SCMP)
Trump claimed he will thwart Chinese acquisitions of American technologies by strengthening the national security review process. (Reuters)
Microsoft launched two new Azure regions in China to complement the existing two. A region is a set of data centers. (TechCrunch)
Robotic arm startup Dobot has raised RMB100 million (US$15 million) in a Series A+ round led by Green Pine Capital Partners. (CMN)
OK Capital has invested over twenty thousand ETH worth approximately tens of millions of dollars in High Performance Blockchain (HPB) which provides a platform that combines both software and hardware architecture to support public chains. (CMN)
Rest of Asia
Chinese smartphone maker Gionee will sell its India operations to Karbonn Mobile and Arvind R Vohra who is Gionee India’s minority shareholder in two or three weeks. (Inc42)
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank looks to file as soon as next month to list its mobile unit in Tokyo. (Seeking Alpha)
Zomato has added a tipping feature to its app, allowing customers to tip deliverymen. (Inc42)
World
Lyft’s valuation doubled from last year to $15.1 billion after a recent $600 million funding round which will fuel its competition with rival Uber. (WSJ)
Google looks to stop debates among employees, stating it would discipline anyone who discriminates against or attacks fellow employees in a set of guidelines sent to employees. (WSJ)
Apple and Samsung have settled a patent dispute which has lasted for seven years. Samsung has allegedly copied the design of the iPhone. (Reuters)
Google has invested $22 million into KaiOS, a startup that has developed an operating system for feature phones. Following the investment, the startup will integrate Google services into more devices. (TC)
Gadgets
Samsung announced an event on August 9 for a new Galaxy device which is likely to be Note 9. (The Verge)
Good News Bad News
Singapore Exchange has approved the largest IPO rules reform by giving green light to companies with dual-class shares to list on its main board starting from Tuesday. (SGX)
