SEA
Startup-O invests US$1 million in Liquidity Marketplace (LMX), a P2P marketplace for corporates, banks and non-banking financial institutions looking to source and deploy short-term liquidity, looking to use the capital to aggressively expand into Southeast Asia and the U.S.. (e27)
NFC Indonesia, Indonesian digital exchange platform, revealed its plan to list on the Indonesia Stock Exchange through an IPO, offering up to 166,667,500 new shares, at an IPO price ranging between US$0.10-0.14 per share, in July. (e27)
According to Michelle Suteja, Director of Central Capital Ventura, the VC unit of Indonesia’s largest private lender Bank Central Asia, it is paramount that bank VCs collaborate instead of competing with one another. (Deal Street Asia)
China
Alibaba’s financial affiliate, Ant Financial, has made a strategic investment in Xingbianli (猩便利), a Chinese operator of staffless convenience stores and snack bars, Chinese biztech media and KrASIA parent company, 36Kr reported on Monday. According to local news service Yicai, the investment is worth hundreds of millions of yuan. Existing investors, Lightspeed China Partners, Sequoia Capital, China Renaissance, and Vision Plus Capital, also participated in the round. (KrASIA)
Byton, a Tesla competitor which claims its concept SUV costs 40% cheaper than a Tesla Model X, announced to have closed a USD 500 million Series B round led by FAW, China’s oldest automaker, with participation from CATL, the world’s largest maker for EV batteries. (KrASIA)
A Foxconn plant that makes devices for Amazon is being investigated by Foxconn itself after it was called out for its harsh working conditions by a U.S. watchdog group. (Reuters)
Baidu is preparing for a CDR issuance application to become the first overseas-listed Chinese company to relist in China. (CMN)
CATL, China’s largest EV battery maker, debuted on Monday in Shenzhen and saw its shares soared 44 percent. China has been pushing for wider use of EV as it seeks to solve environmental problems by embracing clean energy. (Reuters)
M17 Entertainment delayed its debut on the New York Stock Exchange as it failed to raised even half its US$115 million IPO target. This highlights the cautions investors have towards live streaming companies going public. (Deal Street Asia)
Alibaba’s Jack MA looks to bring global delivery times for his logistics affiliates to under 72 hours, and 24 hours locally, investing US$15.6 billion to build an efficient logistics network, as China’s courier industry is booming. (SCMP)
With its hotly anticipated IPO on the HKEX right around the corner, Xiaomi revealed a loss of more than US$1 billion in the first quarter. Its first time share sale is intended to push its international expansion. (Bloomberg)
Sequoia Capital China is rumored to have led a US$400 million pre-IPO round in Bitmain, a Beijing-based Bitcoin miner and mining chip designer. The round valued the firm at US$12 billion. (CMN)
JD is reportedly in talks to invest in B2B logistics platform India’s multi-modal logistics platform Shadowfax’s Series C round which is likely to be in a range of US$18-25 million. (entrackr)
Rest of Asia
Aye Finance, a provider of loans to small business, raised US$21.5 million Series C funding led by CapitalG, the venture capital fund owned by Alphabet Inc and intends to invest the funds into business operations and technology. (Livemint)
Coinrail, one of Korea’s smaller exchanges for ICO-issued altcoins, has been hacked. The hackers got away with more than US$40 million in altcoins which comprises of US$19.5 million-worth of NPXS tokens issued by payment project, US$13.8 million from Aston X, US$5.8 million from Dent, and over US$1.1 million Tron. (Techcrunch)
The online marketplace Mercari Inc. priced its IPO at US$1.2 billion, planning to sell 43.5 million shares at 3,000 yen apiece, with additional shares through a greenshoe option, to begin trading in Tokyo on June 19. This will value Mercari at 406 billion yen. (Bloomberg)
World
A consumer advocacy group asked Tesla to fix “flaws” in its driver-assistance system Autopilot, as per a government report stating the driver didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel before a deadly crash. (Reuters)
Gadgets
Design leaks of Galaxy Note 9 suggested that the new model will not be much different from the Galaxy Note 8 and will support a horizontally-mounted fingerprint scanner on the back. (Gadgets360)
Good News Bad News
Asia is turning to be the blockchain capital of the world. South Korea is estimated to represent 20% of the all daily cryptocurrency trading volume, while China is a front-runner in terms of innovation. (e27)
