Rita Liao
TechCrunch
China
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Recent articles by Rita:
China Roundup: What’s going on with China’s data security clampdown? –
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. A tectonic shift is underway in how Beijing regulates and accesses the troves of citizen data collected by its tech giants. More details of China’s new […] → Read More
Austin-based iFly.vc closes $46M second fund from legendary tech founders –
To compete with the myriad venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, iFly.vc has a unique vantage point. Its founder Han Shen has straddled the United States and China for several decades. He was the first hire on the investment team of Formation 8, the VC firm co-founded by Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale. After iFly.vc backed Weee! […] → Read More
Why former Alibaba scientist wants to back founders outside the Ivory Tower –
Min Wanli had a career path much coveted by those pursuing a career in computer science. A prodigy, Min was accepted to a top research university in China at the age of 14. He subsequently obtained Ph.D. degrees in physics and statistics from the University of Chicago before spending nearly a combined decade at IBM […] → Read More
Didi app pulled from app stores after suspension order –
China has ordered app-store operators to remove the app of Didi from their stores, the latest as tension escalates between the nation’s largest ride-hailing giant and local regulators. The app has disappeared from several stores including Apple’s App Store in China, TechCrunch can confirm. The nation’s cyberspace administration, which unveiled the order on Sunday, said […] → Read More
Apple to drive China revenues with search ad launch –
After launching five years ago in the United States, Apple’s search advertising service finally arrived in mainland China this week. The feature, called Apple Search Ads, lets developers bid on an advertising slot based on users’ keyword search in the App Store, similar to how Google search ads work. JPMorgan previously estimated the giant’s annual […] → Read More
TikTok’s Chinese nemesis Kuaishou hits 1 billion monthly users worldwide –
It’s a big day for Kuaishou, TikTok’s largest rival in China. The Chinese short video company, known overseas for one of its video apps Kwai, announced it has sailed past the one billion monthly active user (MAU) mark. How big is that? Facebook’s MAUs stood at 2.85 billion as of March. TikTok was forecasted to […] → Read More
Chinese robotaxi unicorn WeRide bags over $600M in 5 months –
It’s hard to keep up with the fundraising spree in China’s autonomous driving industry these days. Guangzhou- and California-based robotaxi company WeRide, which counts Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance as one of its strategic investors, has raised over $600 million in just under five months from its Series B and C financing rounds. The four-year-old upstart said in […] → Read More
Why Amazon should pay attention to Shein –
While Amazon's marketplace has proved a boon for businesses trying to get off the ground, many successful companies are now looking beyond the fences, spurred by a desire to compete on their own terms. → Read More
Chinese sellers on Amazon in hot demand by VCs and e-commerce roll-ups –
Chinese merchants selling on Amazon are having a moment. The scruffy exporters are used to roaming about suburban factory areas and dealing with constant cash flow strain, but suddenly they find themselves having coffee with top Chinese venture capital firms and investment representatives from internet giants, who come with big checks to hunt down the […] → Read More
Crypto finance startup Amber Group raises $100M at $1B valuation –
More mainstream venture capital firms are jumping on the crypto bandwagon as investors increasingly consider bitcoin an investable asset, despite the recent massive price drops of a few major cryptocurrencies. Amber Group, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency trading startup, said on Monday it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round at a pre-money […] → Read More
Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation bets on Linux tablet maker Jingling in $10M round –
Kai-Fu Lee’s Sinovation Ventures has its eyes on a niche market targeting software developers. In April, the venture capital fund led a $10 million angel round in Jingling, a Chinese startup developing Linux-based tablets and laptops, TechCrunch learned. Other investors in the round included private equity firm Trustbridge Partners. Jingling was founded only in June […] → Read More
What’s driving the rise of robotaxis in China with AutoX, Momenta and WeRide –
AutoX, Momenta and WeRide took the stage at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 to discuss the state of robotaxi startups in China and their relationships with local governments in the country. → Read More
SoftBank, Uber, Tencent set to reap rewards from Didi IPO –
After years of speculation, Didi Chuxing, China’s ride-sharing behemoth, finally unveiled its IPO filing in the U.S., giving a glimpse into its money-losing history. Didi didn’t disclose the size of its raise. Reuters reported the company could raise around $10 billion at a valuation of close to $100 billion. Cheng Wei, Didi’s 38-year-old founder owns […] → Read More
Biden revokes and replaces Trump actions targeting TikTok and WeChat: report –
President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday revoking actions targeting TikTok and WeChat signed by former President Donald Trump, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. President Biden signed a new order instead requiring the Commerce Department to review apps with ties to “jurisdiction of foreign adversaries” that may […] → Read More
Chinese lidar maker Hesai lands $300M led by Hillhouse, Xiaomi, Meituan –
The rush to back lidar companies continues as more automakers and robotaxi startups include the remote sensing method in their vehicles. Latest to the investment boom is Hesai, a Shanghai-based lidar maker founded in 2014 with an office in Palo Alto. The company just completed a $300 million Series D funding round led by GL […] → Read More
Apple’s new encrypted browsing feature won’t be available in China, Saudi Arabia and more –
Apple announced a handful of privacy-focused updates at its annual software developer conference on Monday. One called Private Relay particularly piques the interest of Chinese users living under the country’s censorship system, for it encrypts all browsing history so nobody can track or intercept the data. As my colleague Roman Dillet explains: When Private Relay […] → Read More
Fashion wholesale marketplace Joor opens China office –
Joor, an online marketplace that connects fashion brands and retailers around the world, has opened its first China office in downtown Shanghai as it eyes growth in the region. The 11-year-old New York-based company works as a virtual showroom for brands, which traditionally would meet with their retail partners in physical venues to showcase the […] → Read More
Huawei officially launches Android alternative HarmonyOS for smartphones –
Think you’re living in a hyper-connected world? Huawei’s proprietary HarmonyOS wants to eliminate delays and gaps in user experience when you move from one device onto another by adding interoperability to all devices, regardless of the system that powers them. Two years after Huawei was added to the U.S. entity list that banned the Chinese […] → Read More
Tencent helps Chinese students skip prohibitively low speeds for school websites overseas –
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students enrolled in overseas schools are stranded as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt life and airlines worldwide. Learning at home in China, they all face one challenge: Their school websites and other academic resources load excruciatingly slowly because all web traffic has to pass through the country’s censorship apparatus […] → Read More
Alibaba is making its cloud OS compatible with multiple chip architectures –
Alibaba’s cloud computing unit is making its Apsara operating system compatible with processors based on Arm, x86, RISC-V, among other architectures, the company announced at a conference on Friday. Alibaba Cloud is one of the fastest-growing businesses for the Chinese e-commerce giant and the world’s fourth-largest public cloud service in the second half of 2020, according […] → Read More