Today’s Tech Headlines: Starbucks to take on Luckin Coffee and Coffee Box in China

SEA

This startup wants to be the ear for the music industry. The burgeoning number of music content being uploaded online makes it a bigger challenge for the music industry to screen and search tracks to source for talents. (KrASIA)

Qualgro, a Singapore-based Venture Capital fund, announced the first completion of a US$100 million second fund with 60% of the fund already committed. This follows a slew of sizable Singapore-based VCs’ new funds raising in the last few weeks. (KrASIA)

AirTrunk, Singapore’s data centre startup, raised A$850m in the form of new senior debt facilities. The funds will be used for its expansion plans in Australia and other key Asia Pacific markets.               (Deal Street Asia)

MindFi is a smart meditation app for busy humans. Bjorn Lee, its founder and CEO, and here is a recount of what this CEO does on a typical day. (Tech In Asia)

China

The plan for Luckin Coffee and Coffee Box to take on Starbucks. These two homegrown coffee startups are running as fast as they can to capture a larger slice of the market quickly. China’s coffee market is getting too big to let a single giant dominate. (KrASIA)

SoftBank claims that they have not participated in Bitmain’s last round. Bitmain is a Beijing-based crypto unicorn that specializes in making cryptocurrency miners. Tencent, the other backer, also declined to comment on the matter. (KrASIA)

ZhongAn, China’s online insurance giant, has struggled for stability since its IPO in 2017. SoftBank is reportedly making an undisclosed investment to take the company into international markets. (TechCrunch)

The showgirl culture at China’s gaming conventions. The practice is a reflection of the sexism in China’s gaming industry. The country’s gaming population reached 583 million in 2017, with close to half of them being women. (SCMP)

CooTek, a Shanghai-based mobile internet firm, is making preparations to head to the public markets in the US. The net proceeds will be used to further finance its R&D, invest in big data analytics and AI technology, and to develop new products and services.                    (Deal Street Asia)

Apple has removed thousands of gambling apps from its App stores in China amid tightened regulations. The governing of online content has become a growing problem even as online content literally exploded alongside the growth of social media. (SCMP)

58 Suyun, a Chinese logistics platform, unintentionally caused an uproar among employees, following a change of name to ‘Fast Dog’. Some of them saw the name change as an attack on their dignity. (Technode)

Rest of Asia

Indians make more use of voice-activated tech than its peers in Asia Pacific. India, China, and Indonesia were found to experience ‘dynamic growth’ as compared to Australia, Singapore, and Japan. (KrASIA)

Amazon in India has a new rule. The head of Amazon.com Inc’s India business has taken a stand against work email after 6pm. While the demands of technology on workers has become a topic of debate around the world, it has become increasingly more lopsided in India, where late-night meetings and weekend calls are the norm. (SCMP)

World

There are no more user reviews on Netflix. The video-streaming giant has delivered on its promise and the firm dropped the feature this week with little fanfare. (TechCrunch)