SEA
Although Grab has acquired Uber in the Southeast Asian region, countries previously not dominated by Uber and Grab has Grab still fighting for market share against players like Indonesia’s Go-Jek, which, according to a survey, hold 55% of the Indonesian ride-hailing market share. (Deal Street Asia)
SGX plans to proceed with the listing of SGX’s new Indian equity derivatives products next month amid an interim injunction applied by the National Stock Exchange of India in an Indian court. SGX’s decision to proceed with the listing comes from its full confidence in its legal position. (Deal Street Asia)
US-based primary care provider Iora Health has received a $100 million Series E funding round from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and other investors. The capital raised will be used to drive further investment in its core technology platform Chirp. (Deal Street Asia)
Indonesian edutech startup, Ruangguru receives a grant from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Solve Programme’s second round funding, showing its capabilities to execute plans and perform high scalability. The startup aims to provide needy children supplementary education to get a decent job. (e27)
Mobike has appointed Vibhor Jain as Chief Executive Officer and Sujith Nair as Chief Business Officer to drive its entry and expansion in India starting with Pune, to across multiple cities in the next 18 months. (e27)
China
Baidu’s founder Robin Li Yanhong reiterated Baidu’s confidence in its strategy to transform into an artificial intelligence (AI) company in the wake of the impending departure Chief Operating Officer Lu Qi at a town hall meeting held on Monday. (SCMP)
Yesterday, Baidu released news of its decision to split its international business, establish new company via new ventures and rely on capital synergies to build its mobile ecosystem. (West Dollar)
Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba join hands with SenseTime, the world’s highest-valued AI startup, to create a not-for-profit artificial intelligence lab in Hong Kong in a bid to enable the city to become a global hub for artificial intelligence. (Techcrunch)
WeChat has removed its restriction on sharing on its Moment feed external audiovisual links, a ban that was implemented on May 18 and lasted only three days. The ban could have seen the blockage of content from popular site, other than those developed by Tencent, like Douyin and Kuaishou. (Technode)
Chinese unicorn Meituan-Dianping’s Meituan Delivery hits a record of more than 20 million orders. The company attributed its success to its big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities feeding into its O2O system, potentially reducing delivery times to 28 minutes. (Tmtpost)
JD.com leverages on AR technologies to improve the shopping experience. The e-commerce giant kicked off three AR-powered products, makeup mirror, dressing mirror, and smart glasses, while announced the establishment of China’s first AR innovation alliance together with Intel, Walmart, VIP.com, Lenovo, and other partners in retail and AR. (36Kr)
US-listed online consumer loan lender Qudian announced disappointing Q1 financial report, as its net profit fell 32 percent compared with a year earlier. At the same time, the company’s auto leasing financing unit Dabai Auto generated USD 87 million in Q1, driving the company’s revenue more than doubled during the same period. (Capital Watch)
Cheetah Mobile reports a revenue of RMB 1.1 billion and a gross profit of RMB 754 million in Q1 2018. Its global MAU was 574 million and 75.4% of its users come from overseas market including the US and Europe. (36Kr)
Chinese consumer lender LexinFintech grew its user number by 94.8% to 26.4 million in Q1 2018 and the volume of the lending facilitated by the company surged 98.3% compared to the same period of last year. (36Kr)
Rest of Asia
Tencent has invested US$50 million in news and entertainment content aggregator NewsDog, where the funds would be used in efforts to showcase works of individuals and professional content creators. (Livemint)
World
Finnish startup HMD Global, the company behind Nokia, raised $100 million to bring more Nokia phones to the market. With the fresh funding, the startup is now a unicorn company. (Android Authority)
Analyst expects Tesla shares to soar by more than 80%, as significantly low material costs will contribute to higher margins for Tesla’s Model 3. While there are reports of Tesla reversing its automated manufacturing strategy, the analyst expects Tesla to remain as the battery technology leader. (CNBC)
Ingrid Avendano, a former Uber engineer, is going head to head with Uber’s new all-inclusive policies, suing for sexual harassment, fighting the chauvinistic image Uber was claimed to be. (Reuters)
Adobe Systems Inc. is buying e-commerce firm Magneto Commerce for US$1.68 billion, introducing around US$13 billion worth of revenue opportunities. (WSJ)
Barack and Michelle Obama have made a deal with Netflix to produce scripted and unscripted series, documentaries and feature films, according to Netflix. (Reuters)
Amazon looks to expand its cloud computing operations in Latin America and has established offices in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. The company sees lots of opportunities and amazing talent in the region. (Reuters)
Good News Bad News
The new EU data-protection law may create rich business opportunities for tech consultants. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation demands many companies to make costly changes while provides business opportunities to firms which offer services that help companies meet the demands of the new data-protection law. (WSJ)
