China’s tech giant Baidu Inc. is seeking a new funding round of up to US$2 billion for its wholly-owned finance unit to push into the financial services sector and compete with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, according to media reports citing insiders.
Asian co-working company naked Hub today today announced plans to acquire a 70% stake in Gravity, a premium co-working space in Australia for passionate entrepreneurs and professionals. The acquisition represents another important step forward for naked Hub, as the co-working operator continues to capitalize on the fast-growing co-working market and expand its presence globally.
Chinese agribusiness company New Hope Group has led a US$92 million series B round in Meiliche Financial, a secondhand car financial services platform, with participation from personal finance management firm Wacai, the company announced.
Faraday Future, the Los Angeles based electric car company run by China’s Jia Yueting, who also founded LeEco, has filed a lawsuit against Evelozcity, a start-up founded by its former chief financial officer Stefan Krause, for allegedly stealing trade secrets.
China’s HNA Group Co., Ltd., has told creditors that it is facing a liquidity shortage of at least RMB15 billion (US$2.4 billion) as it approaches a deadline to repay debts in the first quarter, according to media reports citing insiders.
Chinese state-media has responded angrily to U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported plan to build a secure nationwide 5G network to counter Chinese spying, accusing the White House of using Cold War rhetoric for trade protectionism and saying that the U.S. was more likely to engage in industrial espionage than China.
Financial services firm Orix Corp has led a RMB250 million (US$39 million) series A round in Innostic, a Chinese medical consumable supply chain management platform.
OneSpace, a Beijing-based start-up developing commercial rockets, is set to launch its first rocket in June this year, which will be the first privately-manufactured rocket to be launched in China.
China’s largest networking platform Weibo, operated by Sina Corp. has closed some of its most popular portals for a week after the government accused it of spreading "pornographic, wrong-oriented and ethnically discriminatory information." Similar to Facebook, Weibo had more than 360 million monthly active users in 2017.
Hong Kong-based open-source blockchain platform MATRIX has completed an initial coin offering raising 13,227.5 Ethereum for its newly issued MAN tokens, or the equivalent of US$15.55 million, based on Ethereum’s market price Monday.
China’s largest ride hailing firm Didi Chuxing has established a new artificial intelligence lab in Beijing to support its development on smart transportation technology.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi Inc. has led a RMB200 million (US$31 million) series B2 round in Hsuanzhang, an online financial and tax services provider to small and medium enterprises.
China’s e-commerce giant JD.com Inc. is in talks to sell 15% of its logistics unit, JD Logistics, to a group of early investors including Tencent Holdings Ltd., JD.com’s founder Richard Liu said in an interview with media.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc. surpassed South Korea’s Samsung Group as the top seller of smartphones in India for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2017. During the period, Xiaomi shipped close to 8.2 million units in India, up 170% year-on-year, while Samsung shipped just over 7.3 million units, up 17% year-on-year. Samsung had been the top seller in India for six years. Together, the two companies command more than 50% of the smartphone market in the country, with …
China’s Alibaba Innovation Ventures, the corporate venture capital investment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., has joined a US$30 million round of financing in Israeli safe driving software developer Nexar.
China’s tech giant Baidu Inc. is again losing artificial intelligence talent. Wu Xuebin, Baidu’s vice president in charge of autonomous driving has resigned, just as the company is accelerating its push into autonomous vehicles.
Japan’s financial services firm Orix Corp has led a US$70 million follow-on series D round funding in Chinese peer-to-peer lending platform Dianrong, and plans collaboration between the two companies.
Chinese Internet security firm Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. has teamed up with Beijing Cultural Center Fund to established a RMB1 billion (US$150 million) Internet and culture industry-focused fund.
U.K.-listed Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) and its funds have acquired a 100% stake of Singapore’s private eduction institution PSB Academy (PSB) from Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA).
The government of Shenzhen has banned the deployment in its city of bikes by Bluegogo, the bike sharing start-up controlled by China’s largest ride sharing firm Didi Chuxing, citing problems with bad debts.
China’s tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. has hired Zheng Yefeng, former principal key expert at Siemens AG’s Healthcare Technology Center, as its research and development director of Medical Artificial Intelligence of the company’s machine vision lab, Youtu.
Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. has established two new labs under its Baidu Research division, as part of its push to strengthen fundamental artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, the company said today.
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has led a new funding round in Rokid, a Chinese robotics start-up. Investors including Credit Suisse Group, CDIB Capital International, and existing investor IDG Capital also participated in the round, Rokid announced on its Wechat official account. The company did not disclose the amount it raised, but Chinese media reports put the number at US$100 million. Rokid did not immediately respond to China Money Network’s inquiry to confirm the figure. The new round values the company at …
Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, a non-profit initiative of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd., has led a RMB100 million (US$15 million) series B round in Space Cycle, a Taiwanese fitness brand.
Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has hired Hungarian-American computer scientist Mario Szegedy to join DAMO Academy’s quantum computing lab.
Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has hired Wanlin Liu, former managing director at Goldman Sachs Principal Investment Area, as managing director.
Chinese private equity firm Fosun Capital has led a US$80 million series B round in Bingobox, a start-up developing fully-automated convenience stores.
Chinese online streaming and video sharing mobile app, Kuais Shou, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. is said to be seeking a new funding round worth US$1 billion at a valuation of US$17 billion.
When it comes to raising tens of millions of dollars in venture capital, it helps to be a veteran of Baidu’s artificial intelligence units. Over the prior 12 months, former employees of the Chinese tech giant have raised close to US$300 million in VC funding rounds, according to a review of deals by China Money Network.
China’s e-commerce platform JD.com Inc. has agreed to co-lead a series C round in Vietnam’s leading business-to-customer e-commerce platform Tiki, marking JD.com’s latest push in the Southeast Asian market to compete with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Amazon.com Inc.
A research arm of Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has developed a deep learning model that scored higher than human beings on a Stanford University reading-comprehension test, the first time that a machine has outperformed humans on such a test.