Also, Huawei sales soar in China and GrabFood Singapore merges with main app
Vietnam logistics company LOGIVAN raises US$5.5 million from Alpha JWC Ventures – [e27]
LOGIVAN, a Vietnamese company that specialises in cargo transportation between Northern and Southern Vietnam, announced today it has raised US$5.5 million from Alpha JWC Ventures and Matrix Partners China Founding Partner David Su (through his family office)
Today’s news brings the company’s total funding to US$7.9 million. The money will be used to finance data analysis and cross-platform integration.
LOGIVAN was founded in November 2017 and at the end of 2018 had 22,000 transportation partners with “every major commercial truck type” and 10,000 shippers registered on its system.
Co-working spaces Found. and Collision8 merge to form new co-working space — [e27]
Two of Singapore’s most prominent co-working spaces, Found. and Collision8, announced today a merger that will rebrand the company into Found8.
The merger will combine the two company’s investment war chest and give Found8 US$20 million of financing.
The first major event post-merger will be the impending opening of a new 22,000 square feet space in Kuala Lumpur. The Kuala Lumpur project is part of a drive to build a large startup ecosystem in the heart of Sentral Station, a strategy that is being borrowed from Station F in Paris.
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Found8 will pursue further regional expansion.
Grab Singapore to merge food and transport in same app in H1 2019 — [Business Times]
Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab told the Business Times today that the company plans on integrating its food app with the rest of what it is calling its ‘super app’.
As of now, Grab and GrabFood had been separate apps, a legacy from the acquisition of Uber from last year.
The company is also looking into opening a centralised kitchen in Singapore, a strategy used by other food delivery companies.
HAK wins hackathon hosted by Tokopedia and Indonesian coding school Binar Academy — [e27]
On Sunday, February 10, in South Jakarta, team HAK was named as the first prize winner of Hack of Thrones, a hackathon hosted by Indonesian coding school Binar Academy and e-commerce giant Tokopedia, in partnership with Proud Media Group.
Consisted of three members Ahmad, Aulia Hakiem Noersedya, and Khalil Ambiya, the team built a platform called KYCepat, a blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) network for banks, financial institutions, and other businesses to perform know-your-customer (KYC) tasks.
The team beat 30 other participants in the competition and won a IDR25 million (US$1,782) cash prize.
In addition to the cash prize, they also won the opportunity to join a Golang and Swift training with Tokopedia’s engineering team.
They will also be put on a fast-track to the last stage of Tokopedia’s employee recruitment process.
Huawei phone sales jump in China, Apple slides — [South China Morning Post]
Huawei registered a 23.3 per cent gain in China shipments in Q4 2018, a signal that consumers are working to support the company amidst its battle with the US, according to the South China Morning Post.
Apple shipments dropped by 19.9 per cent — a number the company had warned about in Q4 that led to a stock tumble. It will be worth watching the US trading day to see if that number is considered high or low by investors.
Also Read: Found. and Collision8 merge in major co-working consolidation
Xiaomi also got killed by the Chinese market, seeing a 34.9 per cent drop in shipments.
Based on these shipment numbers, Huawei is the most popular phone company in China, followed by Oppo and Vivo. Apple comes in fourth and Xiaomi is fifth.
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