Uber Launches Motorbikes in India, Chinese VCs Figure Out Silicon Valley
UK-China links hatch for London’s hungry startups and VCs. Silicon Dragon is helping to bridge the gap between the UK and global markets. Read post by Rebecca Fannin at Forbes, after recent visit to London’s startup scene in Shoreditch and beyond.
Chinese investment in American startups is booming, but some of China’s firms are finding it difficult to navigate the U.S. venture world. Even so, the percentage of tech deals with Chinese investment grew from 1.7% to 4.1% between 2011 and the third quarter of 2016. WSJ.
Yunfeng Capital has led a Series C Round of $160 million in Yunmanman, a freight transportation and logistics mobile app operator in China. The previous round was led by Sequoia Capital China.
What Silicon Valley can learn from China: A lot, says Jason Costa, entrepreneur-in-residence at GGV Capital. In China, the way that commerce operates and the way you can actually buy things in apps is just amazing. It’s far, far more evolved and advanced than the way things operate in the States.” http://bit.ly/2hpglwH
Airbnb is plotting a big China push. Airbnb plans to expand its small Beijing office tenfold to 300 employees over the next two years after years of tiptoeing into the country.
Chinese firm Wanda is to sponsor Atletico Madrid’s new stadium. http://reut.rs/2ht99OE
Exit overhand and lofty valuations trouble Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation Ventures.
China Monday Network
SILICON VALLEY
Ericsson’s 10 hot consumer trends for 2017: AI and virtual reality. https://www.ericsson.com/news/2061930
INDIA
In Hyderabad, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has recently launched the innovative UberMotos, a two-wheeler taxi, to get things going.
Less traffic, less pollution! It’s a new tactic for Uber in Asia.
ISRAEL
Israeli-based crowdfunding company OurCrowd has opened an office in Singapore, its seventh office worldwide, to fund Asian startups and engage with Asian investors funding early stage and high-growth companies. Denes Ban, a successful entrepreneur and technology executive, has been appointed Managing Partner Asia and head of OurCrowd’s Singapore operation.
OurCrowd has already made its first investment in the region, in Zoomcar, a car rental company in India. Co-investors were Ford Motor and Sequoia Capital India.
