Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos-backed fund invests in a global geothermal energy project developer

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the investment firm financed by billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Jack Ma that invests in companies developing technologies to decarbonize society, is investing $12.5 million in a geothermal project development company called Baseload Capital. Baseload Capital is a project investment firm that provides capital to develop geothermal energy power plants […]

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Tiger Global and Ant Financial lead $500M investment in China’s shared housing startup Danke

A Chinese startup that’s taking a dorm-like approach to urban housing just raised $500 million as its valuation jumped over $2 billion. Danke Apartment, whose name means “eggshell” in Chinese, closed the Series C round led by returning investor Tiger Global Management and newcomer Ant Financial, Alibaba’s e-payment and financial affiliate controlled by Jack Ma. […]

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With $90 million in funding, the Ginkgo spinoff Motif joins the fight for the future of food

Continuing its quest to become the Amazon Web Services for biomanufacturing, Ginkgo Bioworks has launched a new spinoff called Motif Ingredients with $90 million in funding to develop proteins that can serve as meat and dairy replacements. It’s the second spinout for Ginkgo since late 2017 when the company partnered with Bayer to launch Joyn […]

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Alibaba hits the gas on mobility as its bike sharing service adds carpooling

Carpooling is heralded to be environmentally friendly and money-saving, but in smog-stricken China, the transportation option became a source of public concerns after two female passengers got murdered during their lifts with Didi Chuxing drivers. The ride-hailing app has suspended its Hitch service to this date under government command, and its peers were also directed […]

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Oil and gas giants Chevron and Occidental are backing tech to combat carbon emissions

Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and process it for use in enhanced oil recovery or in the creation of new synthetic fuels, has locked in financing from two big industry backers — Chevron and Occidental Petroleum — to bring its products to market. The undisclosed amount […]

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How a Chinese anti-virus software maker builds a fintech firm to wrestle with giants

360 Finance, an online consumer loan platform that spun off from China’s anti-virus service giant 360 Group, has joined a raft of Chinese fintech companies to go public in the U.S. over the last two years. The company priced its initial public offering at $16.50 per share last Friday, raising $51 million by selling 3.1 […]

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China leaves Huawei founder off honor roll marking 40 years of economic success

In the lead up to China’s 40th anniversary of reforms and opening up, People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, published a list on Monday commending 100 extraordinary contributors to the country’s economic development. Familiar names like Jack Ma of ecommerce operator Alibaba as well as Pony Ma of gaming and social networking […]

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Alibaba and Amazon move over, we visited JD.com connected grocery store in China

The arms race to build the future of grocery stores is heating up in China. To no one’s surprise, the main contestants are the country’s ecommerce titans Alibaba and JD.com, which are turning offline for growth. Online retail has flourished in China, but it still accounts for less than 20 percent of the nation’s overall consumption, according […]

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Alibaba sets new Singles’ Day record with $31B in sales, but growth is slowing

Alibaba scored another blockbuster Singles’ Day after customers around the world shopped in stores and online on the tenth edition of its November 11 shopping festival. That puts this year’s gross merchandise volume – a measure for the dollar value of total transactions – at a staggering $30.8 billion, although the company recorded its lowest-ever […]

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Africa Roundup: Paga goes global and 4 startups raise $99M in VC

Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor Polestar unveils first production EV with aim to overtake Tesla Liquid Telecom goes long on Africa’s startups as future clients Nigerian digital payments startup Paga is gearing up for international expansion […]

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Alibaba goes big on Russia with joint venture focused on gaming, shopping and more

Alibaba is doubling down on Russia after the Chinese e-commerce giant launched a joint venture with one of the country’s leading internet companies. Russia is said to have over 70 million internet users, around half of its population, with countless more attracted from Russian-speaking neighboring countries. The numbers are projected to rise as, like in […]

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Alibaba announces CEO Daniel Zhang will succeed Jack Ma as chairman next year

Following speculation about Jack Ma’s imminent retirement, Alibaba Group announced today that its CEO, Daniel Zhang, will succeed Ma as chairman next year. After stepping down as chairman on September 10, 2019 (exactly a year from now), Ma will continue serving as a board member until its annual general shareholders’ meeting in 2020. After that, […]

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