SILICON DRAGON NEWS
www. Silicon D ragonV entures.com       @SiliconDragon        Jan. 28, 2020    
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How Technology Saved China's Economy
To outsiders, China may seem like a surveillance state. But tech has fueled growth and helped stave off recession. In case you missed this well-argued New York Times column, read on . I couldn't agree more with the points made here about the positive impact of China's tech innovations, by Ruchir Sharma Chief Global Strategist and head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.   

  DATA: 1st Look at China-to-US VC Decline 
Venture capital deals in the U.S. with at least one China investor fell to 163 deals and $6.5 billion of investment in 2019, according to private equity data tracking firm Preqin in London. That's down from 236 deals amounting to $10.8 billion in 2018. 
This China-to-U.S. venture boom took in 2014, when 157 deals totaling $2.7 billion were tallied up, and it's grown steadily since then, at least until last year.  

DEALS
Softbank Group has led a $103 million funding of Skylo, a satellite/IoT startup. The deal brought in previous investors that had put $13 million in a Series A deal co-led by DCM and Innovation Endeavors, and joined by Moore Strategic Ventures. 

Tencent is growing its gaming empire by making a $148 million bid to acquire Funcom in Norway after buying a 29% stake in October 2019. 

Uber sold its food delivery business to Indian leader Zomato, as the U.S. ride-hailing service streamlines its offerings in Asia.  Urban Indians are ordering food online in large numbers. In 2020, the order count is expected to be 1.5 billion. 

Bengalore-based dockless bike rental startup Bounce has snared $97 million in Series D funding round led by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin's venture capital fund B Capital.  

Pine Labs, a point of sales service provider in India, has become the nation's first unicorn of the year with new funding from MasterCard, following earlier funding from Actis Capital and Sequoia Capital India

Sony's venture unit leads a $30 million funding of self-drive car rental platform Zoom in India. 

FUNDS
Tiger Global pulls in $3.75 billion for its 13th fund, to continue aggressively betting on Indian startups but also do deals in the U.S. and China. LogiNext in Silicon Valley is first beneficiary of new funds, raising $39 million from Tiger Global and Steadview Capital for its transportation automation platform. 

Sequoia Capital India is planning to launch a $1.25 billion fund for more India startup investing after backing many unicorns deals. 

NOTEWORTHY
No Google Maps, no problem: Huawei will use TomTom's maps and data. Read ZDNet piece on how the Chinese manufacturer's phones will be outfitted with the Dutch company's navigation services instead. 

Qiming Venture Partners is hiring an analyst/associate in India to source deals and evaluate them. This is part of the pivot from China to India that is going on as Chinese deals become exceedingly challenging.  


Happy Chinese New Year: of the Rat or the Mouse?