Editor’s note:
Binance claimed to have set aside USD 10 million for future bounties and calls other platforms to do the same to counter hackings.
Last week, the cryptocurrency exchange revealed that it suffered a “large-scale phishing and stealing attempt.”
KrASIA Daily is a five-minute read to brief you everything you need to know to start your day. We only choose the latest tech & startup news that is worth your time, with a focus on Southeast Asia and China.
Southeast Asia:
Singapore: Singapore Exchange Ltd. is stepping up efforts to bring technology companies to its market. The bourse last year proposed allowing dual-class shares, a structure favored by tech founders because it lets them keep control after going public. Now SGX wants to loosen some of the restrictions it planned to impose on dual-class listings, such as a minimum market cap. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Luxury lifestyle media and event group Heart Media on Monday announced a strategic investment in Hong Kong-headquartered online luxury marketplace Luxify. No financial terms were disclosed. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures is raising a $100 million third fund to continue investing in Southeast Asia’s burgeoning market for e-commerce, payments and mobile apps, according to a person familiar with the matter. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: Trade and supply chain-focused investor GTR Ventures has announced its debut investments in five trade fintech companies – Tradeteq, Trade Finance Market, Culum Capital, eFundSME and Incomlend – collectively valuing them at around $50 million. (Deal Street Asia)
Singapore: European investment firm Tikehau Capital and Singapore-based SPRIM Ventures have announced the first close of their joint healthcare-focused venture capital (VC) fund at $50 million. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesia: The Indonesian co-working and co-living space, Outpost, announced today it is expanding to a third location in Canggu, Bali. The company has facilities in Ubud, Bali and Phnomn Penh, Cambodia. (e27)
Indonesia: Indonesian venture capital MDI Ventures on Monday announced that it has led a $10-million post-Series A funding round in Australian cloud communication platform Whispir. The venture capital arm of state-owned telco firm Telkom Indonesia was joined by existing investors Telstra Ventures and NSI Ventures in the latest funding round. (Deal Street Asia)
The Philippines: The Philippine central bank’s female deputy in charge of supervising the nation’s lenders has a message for their chief executives: Get more women onto your boards. (Deal Street Asia)
Thailand: Thailand’s new venture capital firm Singha Ventures said it had invested a total of $25 million in Vertex Ventures, the VC arm of Temasek Holdings, and Indonesia’s Kejora Ventures. (Deal Street Asia)
Thailand: Singha Corporation, the Thai conglomerate which owns Singha Beer, has rolled out a venture capital arm. The new VC firm – Singha Ventures – will invest in Series A rounds of startups, and will be geography agnostic. (Deal Street Asia)
Vietnam: Global private equity major Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest over $370 million in Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank or TCB), marking the largest ever PE investment in Vietnam to date. (Deal Street Asia)
China:
Binance, founded by Zhao Changpeng, is offering the equivalent of $250,000 (paid in cryptocurrency) for information that leads to the arrest of hackers who targeted the venue last week, it said in a statement on Sunday. The exchange has set aside $10 million for future bounties and is encouraging other platforms to do the same, it said. (Bloomberg)
Ant Financial’s consumer lending has reached at least 600 billion yuan ($95 billion) despite the affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. facing a tougher environment for securitizing its loans, people familiar with the matter said. (Bloomberg)
To celebrate National Tree Planting Day on March 12, Ant Financial CEO Jing Xiandong said on March 11 that Ant Forest will invest RMB 500 million ($79 million) in ecological protection by the end of 2018, Chinese media TechWeb is reporting. (Technode)
Toutiao, China’s largest news aggregator, is taking globalization 100 percent seriously. ZHANG Yiming, founder and CEO of the rising tech giant, said the keyword for the company in 2018 would be globalization at the company’s sixth year-end gala held on March 9 in Beijing, where Toutiao headquartered. (KrASIA)
China’s WM Motor Technology Co., set to take on Tesla Inc. with an electric SUV going on sale this year, is open to holding an initial public offering in the U.S. as its founder shrugs off a potential trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. (Bloomberg)
Hong Kong’s securities regulator has blocked UBS from sponsoring initial public offerings for 18 months, the Swiss bank said in its annual report released on Friday, adding it planned to appeal against the decision. (Deal Street Asia)
Virtual reality (VR) home interior design platform Kujiale raised $100 million in a Series D funding round led by Shunwei Capital Partners, the venture capital firm co-founded by Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, according to a CMN report. (Deal Street Asia)
A recent restructuring of China’s biggest search engine Baidu sees its map unit merge with Baidu AIG department. General manager at Baidu Map is reportedly leaving the company. (tech.qq)
WeChat blocked the comment feature for newly registered WeChat official accounts. (MyDrivers)
The world’s largest O2O platform Meituan-Dianping is in talks with several convenience stores for potential partnership or investment, in a bid to challenge Alibaba in new retail. (36Kr)
China’s Rotten Tomatoes-like Douban launched a feature that allows users to watch films within the app. (Douban)
Menswear brand HLA reports RMB 18.2 billion in revenue in 2017, up 7.06%, while its profit stands at RMB 4.36 billion, up 7.04%. (Linkshop)
Guangzhou authorities were in talks with Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent to establish the country’s first experimental area for autonomous driving. (tech.sina)
Online lender Qudian reports USD 229.2 million in revenue in Q4, up 108.4%, while its net revenue reaches USD 86 million, up 73.7%. (tech.sina)
RYB education sees it share prices rising after a drop over 50% due to allegations of child abuse. (Finance.Sina)
Baidu and Matrix Partners invest in XGIMI, a smart home projector maker. (36Kr)
Online coffee brand Coffee Box closed a RMB 158 million round led by Qiming VC. (36Kr)
Shunwei Capital and Fosun invest in Hipac, an online B2B platform for maternal products. (36Kr)
Underwear brand Dare One closed a Series A round worth RMB 30 million. The round was led by Capital Today and Telescope Investment. (36Kr)
Pony Ma, founder and CEO of Tencent, calls for legislation and policy research on neo economy, such as sharing economy, blockchain and cryptocurrency. (36Kr)
JD Financial is raising RMB 13 billion to fund its R&D, marketing, and M&As to acquire licenses. CICC and COFCO are likely to lead the round. (Tech.Sina)
Individuals who claim personal income tax worth over RMB 120K can use Alipay to declare. (36Kr)
Yunfeng and Alibaba Investment proposed to acquire iKang Healthcare Group, a major provider in China’s fast-growing private preventive healthcare services market. (Street Insider)
World:
Uber is seeking a $1.25 billion loan and its new Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi was there flanked by other senior management to pitch investors both the deal — and the Uber dream. (Bloomberg)
Spotify Technology SA plans to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange the week of April 2, according to people with knowledge of the matter, giving the company weeks to prepare for an unconventional debut. (Bloomberg)
Silicon Valley darling Dropbox Inc. is aiming to go public at a valuation well below the $10 billion it clocked in its last private funding round, despite posting healthy revenue growth and turning cash-flow positive in the intervening four years. (Bloomberg)
Broadcom Ltd., the Singapore-based chipmaker, said it expects to complete its move to the U.S. by April 3, two days before a shareholder vote at Qualcomm Inc., the target of its $117 billion hostile takeover bid. (Bloomberg)
