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Today’s tech news, February 22: Uber will aggressively invest in Southeast Asia

Today’s tech news, February 22: Uber will aggressively invest in Southeast Asia

Also in the new is debt-ridden Chinese tech group LeEco’s winding up of its Hong Kong unit

LeEco HK unit officially wound up [YiCai Global]

A Hong Kong court has liquidated Le Corporation Ltd., a unit of the debt-ridden Chinese tech group LeEco located in the special administrative region, following a petition filed late last year.

Le Corp’s total outstanding debt amounted to HKD70 million (US$8.95 million), and the firm has been sued several times in recent years by advertising and service vendors over undue payments totalling HKD70 million, news site Sina Technology reported.

The subsidiary did not send any representatives to the court hearing. Le Corp’s former employees, let go last month, are owed severance pay and salary totalling HKD300,000 and will need to apply for the Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund themselves.

LATTICE80 appoints former Korea Senator Sang Min Kim as Advisor [press release]

Global fintech hub LATTICE80 has appointed Sang Min Kim as an Board Advisor.

Kim was the youngest senator in the ruling party, Liberty Korea Party during the last presidency. As a member of National Policy Committee, he oversaw regulatory bodies and also spearheaded the Committee for Financial Innovation.

LATTICE80 has opened its first space in Singapore Nov 2016 and plans to expand globally to build an ecosystem to connect governments, financial institutions/corporates and fintech startups.

LATTICE80 recently announced to conduct its own ICO and will start private sales globally.

Uber will aggressively invest in Southeast Asia, preserve strategy post SoftBank deal [Reuters]

Uber Technologies’s CEO pledged to continue investing aggressively in Southeast Asia even though the US ride hailing firm expects to lose money in the fast growing market due to costly battles with rivals such as Grab.

SoftBank’s 15 per cent stake purchase in Uber last month has opened up the possibility of combining Uber with other ride-hailing assets the Japanese group owns across Asia. SoftBank has stakes in Singapore-based Grab and India’s Ola.

At the time of the investment, SoftBank said it wants Uber to focus on growing in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia — not Asia, which has been among the most costly and competitive regions for the ride-services firm, a source had told Reuters.

SaaS CRM firm Capillary raises US$20M from Warburg Pincus, Sequoia Capital [press release]

Capillary Technologies, a cloud-based software solutions company that enables retailers to intelligently engage with their customers, has raised approximately US$20 million over the past year from its existing investors, including Warburg Pincus and Sequoia Capital.

With these funds, Capillary expects to strengthen its new product development, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning catering to Asia and other upcoming emerging markets. The company also plans to invest behind the newly launched Consumer Goods vertical with its industry-leading solutions.

Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder and CEO, Capillary: “…more than 70 per cent of these funds would be devoted to research and development powering all our products with AI. We’re also looking to further strengthen our presence in China and the Middle East, besides penetrating further into Southeast Asia. We will soon be opening our second office in China at Guangzhou and then another at Beijing later this year. Going beyond retail, we are expanding into consumer goods (FMCG), which has a close affinity to retail.”

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