China Innovations On Display From Fashions To Livestreaming
Chinese fashion designs and art were very much on display at the annual fashion gala held by the China Institute and China Beauty Charity Fund. Pictured: fashion designer Vivienne Tam, TV host, producer and chair of the event Yue-Sai Kan, model Carmen dell’Orefice, and photographer Chen Man, one of the honorees along with designer Lan Yu.
In one more example of China setting tech innovation trends, the live streaming market didn’t really take off in the U.S., but the Chinese mobile livestreaming market is already huge. Some 324 million people in China – or about half the online population – have used a live broadcasting service. Among millennials, live streaming has been used by 83%. Moreover, the number of overall users is predicted to grow to 414 million this year.
Livestreaming revenues in China reached up to $2.25 billion 2015, led by the popularity of such social networking apps as Nasdaq-listed Momo, which saw revenues triple in just one quarter to $57.9 million in Q2 2016 after the launch of a live streaming product. Live streaming quickly became the latest fad, as Chinese tech titans Tencent, Taobao and Weibo jumped in with their own versions. Read Forbes post, livestreamers.
NOTEWORTHY
Much of Hollywood did a double take when the Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group shelled out $3.5 billion for Legendary Entertainment last year. Then, Wanda announced it was paying $1 billion for Dick Clark Productions — a deal that the Chinese government blocked in a curb of overseas investment. But Wanda is not giving up. In an interview with Variety, Jack Gao — the company’s overseas point man — lays out Wanda’s typically aggressive vision for rebooting Legendary and transforming it into a global media player.
Panda Express founders have donated $30 million to Caltech in hopes of inspiring other immigrants.
DEALS
Tencent and Sequoia Capital China have put $51 million into Powerbank, a power charger rental startup in Beijing. After bike rental, will sharing of smartphone chargers be next?
Cherubic Ventures has invested in VeeR VR, a global community of VR video lovers and creators to discover VR video content. VeeR VR, based in China, is one of Cherubic’s latest investments.
TAIWAN
AppWorks Ventures, a Taiwan accelerator with a large alumni network in the region, is raising its third fund of about $100 million targeting, among other things, e-commerce and O2O startups in Southeast Asia wishing to expand to Taiwan.
AUSTRALIA
Gobi Ventures and Sequoia Capital China have begun scouring Australia for more startups following the $17.3 million financing of Melbourne-based fintech startup Airwallex. VCs Steven Ji from Sequoia and Chibo Tang from Gobi were in Australia this past week on the search for the next hit.
INDIA
The Indian co-working space has heated up, almost as much as it has in the U.S. and China. The latest deal in this sector is a $20 million investment by Sequoia Capital India in Indian co-working space provider Awfis, based in Delhi. WeWork, which has been expanding overseas, also has entered the Indian market, opening spaces in Bangalore and Mumbai. Other entrants include 91 Springboard, Skootr and Smartworks. This sector has heated up as India’s startup community grows, expected to reach 11,500 tech startups by 2020.
