Plus, big funding out of Hong Kong, Didi reveals massive losses and Singapore AI startup raises funding
Image Credit: Alibaba
Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang will replace Jack Ma when Chairman steps down in one year — [e27]
The tech scene in Asia was set abuzz over the weekend when it was revealed that Jack Ma will be leaving Alibaba. Today, the company provided further details of the transition.
Ma plans to leave Alibaba in one year’s time and will eventually be replaced by Daniel Zhang, who is currently the CEO.
Ma wrote a long, personal, letter which you can read here.
Go-Jek replaces on-demand grocery service Go-Mart with Go-Shop — [Tech In Asia]
Go-Jek has shut down its instant shopping service Go-Mart, Tech In Asia Indonesia reported. When accessing the Go-Mart feature in the Go-Jek app, users will be asked to use its Go-Shop feature instead.
The difference between Go-Mart and Go-Shop is that Go-Shop requires users to input goods, store, store location, and even the price themselves, while Go-Mart allows users to select goods from a list of available stores.
According to an official statement by the company, the shutdown is part of its product development plan.
Didi Chuxing discloses losses of US$580 million in first half of 2018 — [Financial Times]
A rough month for the Chinese ride-hailing giant continues after the company revealed it lost US$580 million in the first half of 2018, according to the Financial Times.
Didi CEO Cheng Wei sent the information via an internal email that was eventually leaked to the media.
The information was released as a way for the company to defend its ethics after two women were murdered this year by drivers using the product. In an effort to show Didi has a code of ethics, Cheng provided a rare insight into the financial state of the company.
The money-suck is mostly driven by heavily subsidizing rides, which has resulted in a situation where Didi pockets only 1.6 per cent of every transaction.
The company plans to invest more of its revenue in improving safety features.
OneDegree of Hong Kong raises US$12.7 million, expects US$12.7 more — [e27]
OneDegree, a Hong Kong-based insurtech startup has officially raised US$12.7 million and is expecting to double that number citing regulatory approval.
It wants to operate as a digital insurer in the city and allows people to go through the insurance purchasing process entirely via OneDegree.
It supports all personal-line general insurance and health insurance products, and partners with leading organisations in insurance, reinsurance and health services to pilot its technology.
Singapore workplace optimisation startup FriarTuck raises US$3.6 million — [e27]
FriarTuck, an Artificial Intelligence-powered workforce optimisation startup, has raised S$5 million (US$3.6 million) in Series A investment round from global health-tech company Royal Philips and existing investor SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore.
The funding will fuel the Singapore company’s next stage of product development, strategic investments in deep technology, talent acquisition, and regional expansion in Southeast Asia.
FriarTuck provides WorkforceOptimizer, a pay-as-you-go solution that allows enterprises to improve workforce productivity, operation efficiency and business responsiveness. The product employs AI and mathematical optimisation techniques that predicts future labour demand, process millions of complex scheduling rules to automatically generate optimised schedules and dynamically redeploy workforce in real-time based on unplanned events.
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The post Today’s top tech news, September 10: Daniel Zhang set to replace Jack Ma, Go-Jek pivots on-demand grocery service appeared first on e27.
Source: E27