Tencent Forming JV With Top Hollywood Agent, Jack Ma Funds Arianna’s Latest Venture

[Silicon Dragon Digest – Week of June 6, 2016]

CHINA CROSS-BORDER
Tencent is forming a joint venture with Hollywood superagency William Morris Endeavor (WME). The investment is being led by Sequoia Capital China and joined by China-focused investment firm FountainVest Partners. The deal reflects China’s increasing focus on Hollywood. Tencent joins several major Chinese players such as Wanda investing in U.S. entertainment. Silicon Dragon holds its annual forum in Los Angeles July 27 to delve into China Meets Hollywood Meets Tech.

Alibaba leader Jack Ma has agreed to back Arianna Huffington’s new health and wellness startup, Thrive Global. VC firm Lerer Hippeau, a force behind Huffington Post, is joining in to fund Arianna’s latest venture providing workshops, e-courses and certification programs to companies around the world.

Beijing-based Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communication Group is purchasing San Francisco-based Smaato for $148 million. Smaato is an ad tech firm that operates both a supply-side platform for ad inventory and an exchange for handling multiple ad networks. The deal is one of several forged by Chinese entities in the past few months: it follows China Mobvista’s acquisition of mobile ad tech startup NativeX in February, and the in-progress acquisition of browser maker Opera by a group including Qihoo 360.

In a reflection of Chinese investors’ growing interest in soccer, Chinese retail giant Suning has taken a controlling stake in Italian soccer club Inter Milan. The deal is notable for following on the company’s ambitions in domestic soccer. Earlier this year, the firm bought a team called Jiangsu F.C. and then brought on pricey Brazilian stars. The Milan transaction is also notable for the global branding value it brings Suning, as well as for its political dimensions in aligning with the Chinese government’s declared plans to raise the profile of Chinese soccer.

CHINA DOMESTIC
Baidu, Tencent, and JD.com have collectively put $150 million into Bitauto Holdings, a Beijing-based operator of a large car marketplace and investor in transportation startups. Bitauto is also issuing up to $150 million in convertible bonds to PA Grand Opportunity Limited. JD.com and Tencent are returning investors. Baidu is a new strategic investor, with plans for Bitauto to provide inventory for a new auto search on its site.

Domestic researchers are proclaiming that China’s Internet restrictions are harming their ability to innovate. One unnamed academic told media that “it is very difficult to achieve world-leading results or to be a frontrunner in global scientific research with knowledge of [other countries’ achievements] and without comparison.” This and other voices come at a time when the Party has set ambitious targets for Chinese innovation. Read more at Time, here.

INDIA
Sequoia Capital India has participated in the $4 million Series A funding round of Bangalore-based edtech startup Cuelearn, alongside the startup’s existing investor Unitus Seed Fund. The company’s platform offers stay-at-home women a chance to operate a home-based learning center for students, and currently boasts a network of 1,200 selected teachers.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has promised his company will invest an additional $3 billion in India, bringing its total committed investment in the country to more than $5 billion. India is Amazon’s fastest-growing region, and plans are afoot to this year open a Web Services Cloud Region in the nation and a software engineering and development center in Hyderabad.

 Axiata Digital, a subsidiary of Malaysian telecom conglomerate Axiata Group Berhad, has made its first investment in India by putting $16 million in funding into StoreKing, a Bangalore-based rural e-ecommerce company with 16,000 mobile kiosks within retail stores in India. Amazon India had earlier announced a partnership with StoreKing to replicate its mobile offerings and take their footprint to rural markets.

ISRAEL
Qualcomm Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners are among the investors in Israeli data storage company Weka.IO’s recent fundraising, which brings the startup’s total capital raised in excess of $32 million. Gemini Israel Ventures and several individual investors joined the round. The startup’s technology simplifies the way storage is deployed in the datacenter.

EarlySense, an Israeli startup developing an electronic device for remote monitoring and follow-up of patients, has raised $25 million in capital in a round led by Bank Hapoalim, with participation from existing backers Pitango VC and JK&B Capital.

 A new Israel VC firm, State of Mind Ventures, has closed its debut fund with $75 million. The firm was co-founded by Pinhas Buchris and Yuval Baharav, and targets investments in deep technology fields such as space, AI and nanotechnology.

– By Silicon Dragon Writer Ying-Ying Lu
@ginyginy @silicondragon