Asia Tech Review: December 24 2018

The Intercept, which first broke news of ‘Project Dragonfly’ and has been a key source of information to this point, reports that Google reassigned several groups of engineers away from its planned censored search engine following a rift over its use of real internet queries in China for testing. The publication has, again, been a key source for details on the project, but still it seems like the overall goal of being in China remains on the table even if this particular project is reportedly over.

This is massive news for tech giants like Tencent which have been strangled by a nine-month freeze in approvals for new titles, which has cost it significantly it lost earns.

The company was sold to Meituan and, though Hu agreed to stay on, she is moving on now according to a letter to staff.

Founded by ex-Huawei workers, its main service helps banks to detect fraud, identify customers and perform other analysis. The new funding round adds Bank of Communications to a roster of investors that include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China and China Construction Bank. The startups valuation is now $1.2 billion.

The deal follows Starbucks’ alliance with Alibaba and its Ele.me delivery service which rivals Meituan.

The service features 200 chauffeured cars in Chengdu. That might sound like a random start, but the city was once Uber’s largest market in the world for rides… before it sold to Didi, of course.

The firm’s fourth China fund is targeted at a $360 million raise according to a US filing.

The company has become the first insurer to be granted a digital operations license in Hong Kong, while it has also pulled in an investment led by Sun Life’s Hong Kong unit.

The announcement puts into question proposed listings from Bitmain, which is said to be seeking to raise up to $3 billion, and rival company Canaan.

The crypto token, which is said to be a stablecoin, would be launched for WhatsApp’s Indian user base to cover global remittances, according to sources.

Authorities seemingly authorized 10 government agencies — including federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies — to monitor, intercept, and decrypt all data on all computers in the country.

The deal was led by Naspers and it saw Tencent join. It is Swiggy’s third deal of the year.

Confirming a new round reported one week prior, Naspers also led this deal which will see the startup launch English-based learning products for kids aged 3-8 worldwide.

Just like Amazon.

Ola backed Vogo via its Series A this summer, now it plans to integrate scooters into its app and potentially help with expansion.

The B2B commerce company has benefitted from India’s GST push to digitize tax as it aims to do the same for manufacturing sales in the country. It is also beginning to look at overseas options.

Mi Pay is coming soon to India.

The record Japanese IPO saw prices tumble some 15 percent of their first day of trading, leading to concerns that the over-priced listing has burned consumers.

Now valued at $2.6 billion, the company is doubling down on developing robots for its ‘Baedal Minjok’ food delivery service and looking at overseas expansion. The round came from Tencent backer Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital and Singapore’s GIC.

The deal seems to be contingent on SoftBank’s existing stake in Grab transferring over to the Vision Fund. Grab is close to closing $3 billion for its Series H round, which would then be made larger still via this investment.

Facebook removed a number of accounts and pages on Facebook, as well as Instagram accounts, but it still isn’t prepared to open a local presence in the country.

Iflix said it will double down on markets like Malaysia and Indonesia.

This is off the back of a new $14 million fund for the country.