Don’t miss out our headlines this week: Kunlun Tech building new AI company with USD 3 million investment; Female-oriented food site lands financing from Shunwei Capital; and Cross-border e-commerce platform to provide affordable fashion for middle class.
Kunlun Tech building new AI company with USD 3 million investment
Dora Zhang
Beijing Kunlun Tech, a listed gaming company, announced on Wednesday that it will invest USD three million with other players to build an artificial intelligence (AI) company, Kunlun AI. Kunlun Tech will have a 15% stake in the new company’s total shares.
According to Kunlun Tech’s announcement, Kunlun AI will provide AI and big data technology for companies in advertising, voice recognition, content recommendation, security, marketing and finance.
Kunlun AI will be headquartered in California. It claims to have recruited elites from Facebook, Baidu, Pinterest and Dropbox.
Online tutoring service uses hardware to emulate classroom
Dora Zhang
Sanhao.com, an online education platform, just secured RMB 75 million (USD 11.5 million) in Pre-A financing, pushing its valuation close to RMB one billion, according to the platform.
The company said on Friday that it will use this round of funding for technology development, which currently takes up 48.7% of the company’s total spending.
Founded in June 2014, the company provides live-stream one-on-one lessons for kindergarten to grade 12 students. After administering an online test to students, it automatically uses big data to design lesson plans and recommends teachers based on the result.
Leading Instagram-like photo sharing app listed on China’s New Third Board
Ibo Fung
Hangzhou-based social photo-sharing platform “in” just received official admission to list on China’s New Third Board.
Growing net loss may be the driving force behind the planned listing. According to Sina Tech, the company reported losses from January to July 2015 of RMB 58.7 million (USD nine million). In June 2015, The company landed RMB 300 million in Series B financing from Matrix Partners China and other earlier investors including Cash Capital and Incapital.
In its report submitted to the authority of the New Third Board, known for small-and medium-sized enterprises financing, the company stated its valuation reached RMB 221 million in July 2015.
Female-oriented food site lands financing from Shunwei Capital
Dora Zhang
Gegejia.com, a global food importer and provider targeting the female market, announced on Thursday that it secured tens of millions of RMB in Series A financing. The round of financing was led by Xiaomi-backed Shunwei Capital, followed by Matrix Partners China and ZhenFund.
The company said the funding will be used to improve their supply chain and further explore their cross-border e-commerce business model.
In 2015, the company landed several Japanese food companies as agents, and also developed direct mail and fast delivery services for perishable food. This year, the company plans to create more direct services with food companies in Europe and America.
Alibaba affiliate buys its way into China’s lottery market to compete with LeEco and Tencent
Ke Jin
Alibaba has now set its sights on China’s lottery market, with its financial affiliate Ali Fortune becoming a major shareholder of the Hong Kong-listed company Asia Gaming Technologies Limited (AGTech).
Ali Fortune, backed by Alibaba and Ant Financial, spent HDK 2.39 billion (USD 308 million) on AGTech’s shareholder rights last Friday. It bought HKD 1.68 billion worth of of AGTech’s shares and HKD 713 million in convertible bonds, altogether 59.45% of AGTech’s shareholder rights.
AGTech, one of the largest sports lottery terminal manufacturers in China, deals in gaming technology, online and mobile lottery, and lottery management. By joining hands with Alibaba, AGTech will be authorized to run its lottery business on Alibaba’s Taobao and Alipay, and it will be able to take advantage of Alibaba’s expertise in cloud computing and e-commerce.
Cross-border e-commerce platform to provide affordable fashion for middle class
Wanbin Zhang
A cross-border e-commerce platform, StyleWe, announced on Thursday that it has received an angel investment of RMB 15 million (USD 2.3 million) from Lenovo-backed LeFund.
“We will use this round of funding to further optimize StyleWe’s platform and market promotion system, and we will launch our Series A financing in the first half of 2016,” said Yang Xingjian, founder and CEO of StyleWe.
Founded in August 2015 in Beijing, the platform provides high-quality originally-designed fashion products to global consumers through cooperation with independent designers. It established cooperation with designers from more than 300 brands by the end of 2015 and has plans to introduce an additional 2000. By the end of January 2016, the company’s income per month rose to over USD five million.
(Top photo from zuojing.com)
