Silicon Dragon Entrepreneur From US Wins Champion Prize In Beijing Contest
Miranda Wang took honors as the champion entrepreneur in the Overseas Talent Entrepreneur Contest in Beijing for the synthetic biology startup, Biocellection, she founded this year with co-founder Jeanny Yao.
Biocellection was one of two startups selected at Silicon Dragon New York 2016 in June to go to Beijing and compete in the international contest held by OTEC in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.
Wang competed against dozens of startups from several major innovation markets such as Israel and Australia. As the grand prize winner, Biocellection receives startup financing and office space in Chaoyang district. She is pictured here with Silicon Dragon founder/editor Rebecca Fannin and her business development manager Steven Cheng.
Wang and her co-founder began working on the technology for Biocellection as a science project while they were still high school students. Now they have several patents in process, and sufficient capital to build up their team in the U.S. and Beijing and scale up the business.
They aim to turn Biocellection into a $100 million business within five years with their vision of solving the problem of unrecyclable plastic waste.
LeEco, a Chinese video streaming-plus company whose backers include China Bridge Capital and Legend Holdings, is acquiring Irvine, Calif.-based TV maker Vizio for $2 billion. See Forbes post on the deal and SVP Eric Mika’s take on its impact.
INDIA
Fashion ecommerce platform Voonik has secured $3 million in venture debt financing from InnoVen Capital, just weeks after the Bangalore-based company closed an equity funding round of $20 million in Series B financing led by its existing investors Sequoia Capital and Seedfund.
The round included Beenext from Singapore and Times Internet. The online fashion market has heated up as Flipkart-owned Myntra acquired a related entity, Jabong.
Zoomcar, a four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based car rental company that lets individuals rent by the hour or day, is raising $25 million in Series C funding from Ford Smart Mobility, Reliance Venture Asset Management and Sequoia Capital. The deal represents Ford’s first investment in India.
JAPAN
Paidy, a cardless e-commerce payment and instant credit service in Tokyo, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Fidelity investment arm Eight Roads (the investment arm of Fidelity), and SBI Holdings. Other participants include Itochu Corporation and earlier investors Arbor Ventures and SIG Asia.
Retty, a five-year-old, Tokyo site where users can write dining reviews, has raised $10.5 million in Series D funding led by World Innovation Lab and joined by ABC Dream Ventures and Eight Road Ventures Japan. Atonarp Inc., a Tokyo-based developer of spectroscopic instruments, has raised $16 million in new VC funding. Innovative Network Corp. of Japan (INCJ) led the round, and was joined by Walden-Riverwood Ventures and Innovative Venture Fund Investment.
ISRAEL
Zeek, a Tel Aviv-based startup that runs online marketplace for buying and selling unwanted store gift cards, has raised $9.5 million in Series B funding. Scale-Up Capital led the round, and was joined by return backers Blumberg Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, FJ Labs, Emery Capital, Ton Ventures, Radiant Venture Capital, I Angels and Target Global.
