Rita Liao
TechCrunch
China
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Recent articles by Rita:
The tech industry comes to grips with Hong Kong’s national security law –
Scott Salandy-Defour used to make frequent stops at a battery manufacturer in southern China for his energy startup based in Hong Kong. The appeal of Hong Kong, he said, is its adjacency to the plentiful electronics suppliers in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the city’s amenities for foreign entrepreneurs, be it its well-established […] → Read More
TikTok faces ban in the US; pulls out of Hong Kong –
The world’s most popular short video app continues to be in the crosshairs of politicians globally. On Monday night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning TikTok over concerns that it could be used by the Beijing government as a surveillance and propaganda tool. The […] → Read More
Beyond Burger arrives in Alibaba’s grocery stores in China –
Beyond Meat is starting to hit supermarket shelves in China after it first entered the country in April by supplying Starbucks’ plant-based menu. Within weeks, it had also forayed into select KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut outlets — all under the Yum China empire. China, the world’s biggest market for meat consumption, has seen […] → Read More
Daimler-backed Momenta says its robotaxis will be fully driverless and profitable in 2024 –
In China and the U.S., there’s much debate about when and how humans will achieve fully autonomous robotaxis at scale — cars that chauffeur passengers under complex road conditions without safety drivers behind the wheel. Many pieces are needed to make this happen: mammoth amounts of test data, advanced algorithms, strong operational teams, big checks […] → Read More
Chinese online learning app Zuoyebang raises $750M –
Zuoyebang, a Beijing-headquartered startup that runs an online learning app, said on Monday it has raised $750 million in a new financing round as investors demonstrate their continued trust in — and focus on — Asia’s booming edtech market. U.S. investment firm Tiger Global and Hong Kong-based private equity firm FountainVest Partners led the six-year-old […] → Read More
Cambricon, once Huawei’s core AI chip supplier, eyes $400M IPO –
One of China’s most valuable artificial intelligence chipmakers Cambricon is one step closer to its initial public offering, and its prospectus reveals a rare snapshot of where Chinese companies stand in relation to their international counterparts in this critical field. Cambricon got the nod in early June to list on the Star Market, China’s new […] → Read More
Telegram pledges to make anti-censorship tools for Iran and China –
The encrypted instant messenger Telegram said on Monday it’s ramping up efforts to develop anti-censorship technologies serving users in countries where it is banned or partially blocked, including China and Iran. “Over the course of the last two years, we had to regularly upgrade our ‘unblocking’ technology to stay ahead of the censors… We don’t […] → Read More
China Roundup: Huawei targets cars, ByteDance enters Tencent’s backyard –
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, we have several heavy-hitting rumors swirling around, from Huawei’s chips for cars to Tencent’s potential buyout of its video rival iQiyi. China tech […] → Read More
Geek+, the Amazon Kiva of China, lands $200 million Series C –
Geek+, a Beijing-based startup that makes warehouse fulfillment robots similar to those of Amazon’s Kiva, said Thursday that it has closed over $200 million in a Series C funding round. That bumps total capital raised by the 5-year-old company to date to nearly $390 million. The new round, completed in two parts, was separately led […] → Read More
China’s gay dating app Blued eyes Nasdaq IPO to expand overseas –
It was around 20 years ago when Baoli Ma hid in his bedroom feeling helpless and lonely for being a gay man in China. Life has changed dramatically for Ma since then. This week, BlueCity, the gay dating and lifestyle platform he created, has filed for an initial public listing on Nasdaq. “To me, herein […] → Read More
China’s BYD nabs $113M to produce IGBTs, the ‘CPU of electric cars’ –
BYD Co., the Chinese auto giant backed by Warren Buffett, is rushing to make China self-sufficient in the production of electric vehicles. On Monday, the firm said in a filing it has secured 800 million yuan ($113 million) in a Series A+ round for its chipmaking arm, BYD Semiconductor. At stake is the race to make […] → Read More
VESoft raises $8M to meet China’s growing need for graph databases –
Sherman Ye founded VESoft in 2018 when he saw a growing demand for graph databases in China. Its predecessors like Neo4j and TigerGraph had already been growing aggressively in the West for a few years, while China was just getting to know the technology that leverages graph structures to store data sets and depict their […] → Read More
China Roundup: Alibaba to add 5,000 staff to cloud unit –
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, we have updates from Alibaba’s rapidly growing cloud computing unit, Apple’s controversial decision to remove two podcast apps from its Chinese App Store, […] → Read More
Pocket Casts and Castro Podcasts removed from Apple’s China store –
Before June each year, content and media platforms in China anxiously anticipate a new round of censorship as the government tightens access to information in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. This year, Chinese users lost access to two podcast apps — Pocket Casts and Castro Podcasts. Neither app is searchable […] → Read More
Alibaba taps international influencers to sell more globally –
For years, Chinese e-commerce exporters have been learning the ins and outs of ad placement on Facebook, Instagram and other mainstream social media platforms to reach customers around the world. But they recently spotted a new way to grab people’s attention, one that has never felt more familiar. Video influencers. Shopping via videos is currently […] → Read More
Eswin raises $283M to boost chip production in China –
Beijing Eswin Computing Technology, a Chinese startup that supplies semiconductor design and solution provider, has raised $283 million in a new financing round at a time when the world’s most populous nation is looking to cut its reliance on the U.S. and UK for chipsets. The four-year-old firm said the new round, Series B, was […] → Read More
China Roundup: Mega trade fair goes online, anti-China sentiment hobbles developers –
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what those events mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, we are seeing the backlash Chinese tech companies face around the world as anti-China sentiment escalates. In China, one of the world’s […] → Read More
Tibet to become China’s data gateway to South Asia –
A sprawling 645,000-square-meter data facility is going up on the top of the world to power data exchange between China and its neighboring countries in South Asia. The cloud computing and data center, perched on the plateau city Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and developed by private tech firm Ningsuan Technologies, has entered pilot operation […] → Read More
What grocery startup Weee! learned from China’s tech giants –
When Larry Liu moved to the U.S. in 2003, one of the first challenges he experienced was the lack of Chinese ingredients available in local groceries. A native of Hubei, a Chinese province famous for its freshwater fish and lotus-inspired dishes, Liu got by with a limited supply found at local Asian groceries in the […] → Read More
Prosecutors seek arrest warrant against Samsung heir Jay Lee –
South Korean prosecutors said on Thursday that they have filed an arrest warrant for Samsung Group’s anointed heir Jay Y. Lee and two other former company executives as part of a sprawling investigation into an alleged accounting fraud and a controversial merger that shook the country. In May, Lee appeared before prosecutors to be questioned […] → Read More