- Financial Times reported that Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) was among the investors putting at least $1B into Ofo, a Chinese bike-sharing company.
- Ofo has 100M dockless bikes in China and an additional 10K in other countries. Ofo’s app prioritizes users paying with Alipay, the payment system of Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial.
- Ofo’s $3B valuation matches that of competitor Mobike. The third largest bike-share company by users is Hellobike, which raised $350M in a Series D round including Ant Financial. The other backers were electric vehicle company WM Motor, Chengwei Capital, and Fujita.
- Connected planning platform company Anaplan received $60M in Series F funding from Top Tier Capital Partners, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Ventures, and PremjiInvest. The round gives Anaplan a $1.4B valuation.
- Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) joined WM Motor’s latest round that raised an undisclosed amount. WM Motor could debut its first mass-market vehicle next week in the form of a $30K SUV.
- WM Motor CEO Freeman Shen confirmed the participation to China Money Network and said the company had raised $1.8B total so far with a target of up to $4.5B.
- Modsy, a 3D imaging company for home design, raised $23M in a Series B round led by Advance Venture Partners joined by previous investors including Birchmere Ventures, NBCUniversal (NASDAQ:CMCSA), and Comcast Ventures.
- Samsung (KS:005930) (OTC:SSNNF, OTC:SSNLF) participated in a $20M Series B round in Vion Technolgy, a Chinese AI firm focused on machine learning. Other backers: automation company ABB, venture firm Tsing Capital, and investment firm Waterwood.
- Vion Technology’s products include a smart traffic camera, a face and age recognition terminal for monitoring, and a smart camera that counts people.
- Robotic vision company Perceptin raised $11M in a Series A round that included Samsung Ventures, Matrix Partners, and Walden International.
- Perceptin created Ironsides, a hardware and software system that provides autonomous robots with real-time tracking, mapping, and route planning.
- Previously: SoftBank Vision Fund invests in Compass (Dec. 7)
- Now read: Samsung Looks Poised To Buy Or Partner With Fitbit
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