Welcome back! Last week's biggest story -- and one of the biggest of the year -- was Bloomberg's repo
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| October 8 · Issue #88 · View online |
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Welcome back! Last week’s biggest story – and one of the biggest of the year – was Bloomberg’s report that the Chinese government infiltrated Apple, Amazon and other US companies by secretly embedding ‘spying’ chips on their services using motherboards from US firm Supermicro. There’s already lots of chatter – particularly since all the companies firmly rejected the claims – since the story feeds into concerns around supply chain vulnerabilities in China. Elsewhere, Tencent is reportedly investing in India’s Delhivery, Southeast Asia unicorns Grab and Traveloka are said to be raising more money, and Hong Kong is now dishing out China-style vengeance on journalists who have ruffled its feathers. I’m on vacation in the UK for two weeks, hence this email going out later than usual, but I expect to send the newsletter out as usual baring, perhaps, a little time delay. So see you next week! Jon
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How China used a tiny chip to infiltrate US companies
One of the explosive stories in recent years: sourcing information from over 15 sources, Bloomberg claims the Chinese government secretly placed tiny chips on motherboards from US company Supermicro which later ended up on servers deployed by Apple, Amazon and others. All parties involved, including the Chinese government, deny the findings of the report. A must-read if you didn’t check this out already.
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SoftBank reportedly plans to invest $50M in Baidu education spin-off
Zuoyebang span out of Baidu in 2014 and it helps primary and secondary school students in China
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Tencent Music, China’s largest streaming service with 800M users, files for US IPO
The company is looking to raise at least $1 billion. It is profitable, unlike other streaming services, although its revenue is much lower than Spotify.
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Tencent injects $317.6m into Chinese anime streaming site Bilibili
Bilibili’s other shareholders include Tiger Global Management, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock and Alkeon Capital Management.
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Hong Kong expels Financial Times editor
The Chinese media visa games have come to Hong Kong. The FT confirmed that Hong Kong will not renew a work visa for Victor Mallet, who had chaired a controversial FCC talk with an independence activist.
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AI accelerator Zeroth bags $3M investment from digital media firm Animoca
Zeroth is 18-months and already it has landed an investment from Animoca. This time around, Animoca has bought a majority share of Zeroth’s operating business and it has pledged to come an LP in its fund.
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SoftBank Vision Fund may invest $200-$250M in Delhivery
The deal would reportedly value the startup at around $1.2 billion. Alibaba has been actively investing and growing its e-commerce business in India so Tencent is somewhat behind at this point.
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Byju's reportedly raises $100M at a $2B valuation
The money is said to have come from General Atlantic, although Byju’s has not commented on reports.
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Truecaller adds a messaging feature
The company is hugely focused on India where it has rolled out payments and bill paying. The move to add messaging comes ahead of plans to open the Truecaller platform up to third-party developers.
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Vahdam Teas raises $2.5M to grow its tea-commerce business in the US
The deal values the startup at around $25 million. Vahdam claims to have shipped 100 million cups of tea to 200,000 registered customers. The US accounts for as much as 75 percent of revenue and this investment is aimed at growing its presence there further.
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Zoho domains central to keylogger and data theft campaigns worldwide
The Indian online office suite is reportedly being abused on a massive scale to exfiltrate data from compromised machines.
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India's politicians are flocking to 'no English' messaging platform ShareChat
Android-based ShareChat supports 14 Indian languages, but no of them are English.
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Saudi Arabia commits $45B to SoftBank's second Vision Fund
Saudi Arabia is preparing to double-down on its bet that Masayoshi Son can pick the technology giants of the future. The country’s sovereign fund will make another $45 billion investment in Son’s second massive Vision Fund.
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SoftBank and Toyota team up to develop services powered by self-driving vehicles
The services could include ride-hailing, food delivery, mobile offices and more.
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Samsung forecasts record Q3 profits
High demand from merry chips, rather than smartphones, is driving the record operating profit predictions, but analysts have warned that prices may slip to affect revenue later this year.
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Grab is reportedly raising another $1B including $500M from SoftBank
The company just closed a $2 billion investment, but Go-Jek is said to be raising another $2 billion so Grab is increasing its own war chest.
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Traveloka is reportedly raising $400M
The company raised $350 million from Expedia and other investors last year.
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Tencent backs fintech firm Voyager to set up battle with Alibaba in the Philippines
Alibaba invested in Mynt via Ant Financial, and now Tencent is entering the fintech fight in the Philippines via this deal.
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Philippines SME lending startup First Circle raises $26M
First Circle is preparing to expand its service to other parts of Southeast Asia.
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Go-Jek is close to launching a ride-hailing service in Singapore
The launch is planned to happen this month, although it might be pushed back. The company may team up with ComfortDelGro, Uber’s former ally in Singapore.
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A look at how WeChat failed in India, which is WhatsApp’s largest market link
Sony’s new boss speaks about his rebuilding challenge link
How the internet is being customized to reach India’s rural users link
FT board on Hong Kong’s decision to expel editor Victor Mallet link
The rise of India-based kids YouTube channel ChuChuTV link
Funding in China and India is growing despite a drop in the US link
Facebook is using its experiences in Myanmar to improve its efforts in Africa link
Bloomberg’s explosive China chip story highlights the challenge of national security reporting link
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