Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on TechNode, an editorial partner of TechCrunch based in China. From Alibaba to JD, China is not short of e-commerce powerhouses. Although the country’s e-commerce market is highly consolidated, it’s not impossible for startup teams to crack this market as long as they are solving the right problems for […]
View More The incredible rise of Pinduoduo, China’s newest force in e-commerceCategory: alibaba group
Kredivo raises $30M to build a digital credit card for Southeast Asia
FinAccel, a Southeast Asia-based startup that offers a digital credit card service in Indonesia, has closed a $30 million Series B round as it begins to consider overseas expansion. The company launched its ‘Kredivo’ service two years ago to help consumers pay online in Southeast Asia, where credit card penetration is typically low, and it is essentially […]
View More Kredivo raises $30M to build a digital credit card for Southeast AsiaAlibaba boosts its offline reach with $2B+ investment in outdoor digital marketing firm
Alibaba is investing big bucks into offline distribution. The Chinese e-commerce giant has forked out $2.23 billion in exchange for a sizeable piece of Focus Media, a Shanghai-based company that operates outdoor digital advertising screens across China, Singapore and Hong Kong, according to a U.S. filing. The deal itself is broken up into a few pieces. Alibaba itself […]
View More Alibaba boosts its offline reach with $2B+ investment in outdoor digital marketing firmAirwallex raises $80M for its international payment service for businesses
Airwallex, a three-year-old fintech startup focused on international payments for SMEs and businesses, is putting itself on the map after it raised an $80 million Series B round. Based of out of Melbourne, but with six offices in Asia and other parts of the world, Airwallex’s new funding round is the second largest financing deal […]
View More Airwallex raises $80M for its international payment service for businessesToss, Korea’s top payment app, raises $40M from Sequoia China and Singapore’s GIC
The largest payment app in South Korea, Toss, has pulled in $40 million in fresh investment from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia China. The deal for Viva Republica, Toss’s parent company, comes just over a year after it raised $48 million from payment giant PayPal and others. There’s no valuation for this newest round, […]
View More Toss, Korea’s top payment app, raises $40M from Sequoia China and Singapore’s GICAlibaba’s Ant Financial fintech affiliate raises $14 billion to continue its global expansion
Ant Financial, the financial services affiliate connected to Alibaba which operates the Alipay mobile payment service, has confirmed that it has closed a Series C funding round that totals an enormous $14 billion. The rumors have been flying about this huge financing deal for the past month or so, with multiple publications reporting that Ant […]
View More Alibaba’s Ant Financial fintech affiliate raises $14 billion to continue its global expansionEquity podcast: More funding for scooters, Cruise gets a boost, and Chinese IPOs
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week was fun. Back in the studio, Connie Loizos, Matthew Lynley, your humble servant, and Ramneek Gupta, managing director of Citi Ventures was with us to provide the venture perspective. As you can probably guess, we got […]
View More Equity podcast: More funding for scooters, Cruise gets a boost, and Chinese IPOsChina’s SenseTime, the world’s highest-valued AI startup, closes $620M follow-on round
SenseTime, the world’s highest-valued AI company with a valuation of over $4.5 billion, is back in the money again. The company raised $600 million in an Alibaba-led financing round announced last month, and now it has added a further $620 million to that with a “Series C+” round announced today. Alibaba led the previous deal, […]
View More China’s SenseTime, the world’s highest-valued AI startup, closes $620M follow-on roundAlibaba doubles down on logistics with $1.4B investment in Chinese courier ZTO
Alibaba is doubling down on logistics after it led a $1.38 billion investment in Chinese courier firm ZTO Express alongside Alibaba logistics affiliate Cainiao. ZTO went public on the NYSE in 2016 raising $1.4 billion from what was the year’s largest IPO in the U.S. The Shanghai-based company claims to be one of China’s largest […]
View More Alibaba doubles down on logistics with $1.4B investment in Chinese courier ZTOAlibaba Group agrees to sell several Tmall healthcare categories to subsidiary Alibaba Health
Alibaba Group announced today that it has agreed to sell several of the healthcare categories on Tmall, its B2C shopping platform, to digital healthcare subsidiary Alibaba Health Information Technology. In exchange, Alibaba Group will receive $10.6 billion HKD (about $1.35 billion) in newly issued shares of Alibaba Health and increase its equity stake in the […]
View More Alibaba Group agrees to sell several Tmall healthcare categories to subsidiary Alibaba HealthTencent leads $50M investment in NewsDog, an app vying to be India’s Toutiao
The growth of China’s Bytedance, an ambitious $30 billion tech firm, and its highly-addictive Toutiao news aggregator app has set off a search for services with similar growth potential across the world. India, second in population only to China with rapidly-growing internet access, is an obvious place to look, and would-be pretender to the Toutiao […]
View More Tencent leads $50M investment in NewsDog, an app vying to be India’s ToutiaoHow did Thumbtack win the on-demand services market?
Earlier today, the services marketplace Thumbtack held a small conference for 300 of its best gig economy workers at an event space in San Francisco. For the nearly ten-year-old company the event was designed to introduce some new features and a redesign of its brand that had softly launched earlier in the week. On hand, […]
View More How did Thumbtack win the on-demand services market?