H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (18 April 2019) – How Setbacks Help Us Discover What We Truly Love: “The truth is, we just don’t know whether we actually are in love with the process until we experience the setbacks.”

April 18, 2019 Leave a comment

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (18 April 2019) – How Setbacks Help Us Discover What We Truly Love: “The truth is, we just don’t know whether we actually are in love with the process until we experience the setbacks.”

Companies

  • Meituan downsizes fresh grocery business a year after launch (Technode)
  • Japanese semiconductor company Ferrotec Holdings has decided to shut down its business in Korea (KT)
  • Terry Gou will resign as Foxconn’s chairman to run for president of Taiwan (TC); Gou’s Taiwan presidential bid raises Foxconn succession question; Founder’s key lieutenants face strategic challenge as iPhone shipments fall (Nikkei)
  • CCL firm Ventec listed on TWSE, poised to grab 5G opportunities (Digitimes)
  • Atlassian shares hit on Q3 guidance (AFR)
  • ReadyTech up 18 per cent on debut; flagship product is a cloud-based student management system, which has a strong presence in TAFEs and mid-tier universities (AFR)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung, Softbank

  • Can Foldables Revive Flagging Smartphone Sales? Samsung And Huawei Bet They Can (Forbes); How Samsung engineered its folding phone; South Korean company’s innovations included batteries, hinge design and even glue (FT)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

  • How Instagram Is Turbocharging Facebook’s Earnings (Barron’s)
  • Facebook and Snapchat turn to Chinese giants for growth tips; US social media experiment games and payment, straight from Tencent’s playbook (Nikkei)
  • Amazon reportedly withdrawing from China (Technode)
  • Apple in talks with potential suppliers of sensors for self-driving cars – sources (Reuters)
  • Netflix casts India as its new star; US streaming giant launches aggressive plan as home growth slows (Nikkei)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

  • Investors cool on Chinese education start-up; Tighter regulation and evidence of market fatigue hit stocks (FT); Investors turn cold on Chinese education start-up VIPKID; Fast-growing group connects teachers in US with vast pool of Chinese students (FT)
  • Shanghai tech board to push semiconductor independence (Technode)
  • China’s electric car makers face ‘critical’ maturity period over the next two years, KPMG says; Consolidation likely as electric car makers face tighter capital markets, end of government subsidies next year (SCMP)
  • The man who ushered in China’s battery vehicle boom wants to do the same for fuel cells (qz)
  • Douyin folds in e-commerce with mini-programs (KRA)
  • Robo-Rigs: The Scientist, The Unicorn And The $700 Billion Race To Create Self-Driving Semi-Trucks (Forbes)
  • Airbnb begins to recover in Japan, a year after crackdown (Nikkei)
  • Big Tech to face antitrust law on user data in Japan; Tokyo looks to protect consumers from unfair privacy policies (Nikkei)
  • Korea launches robo investing apps for 1st time. They not only provide financial advice, but also manage customer’s investments without human intervention. (Investor)
  • AIA Singapore partners with WhiteCoat for telemedicine service (e27)
  • Acquisitions are a way to grow: Carousell co-founder and CEO Quek Siu Rui with an outlook post-Naspers deal; The presence of Facebook Marketplace might accelerate further consolidation among classified marketplaces in Southeast Asia (KRA)
  • Malaysian logistics startup TheLorry secures strategic investment from Unilever (KRA)
  • InMobi wants to glue your attention to your lock screen; With its new ‘screen zero platform’ called Glance, the ad-tech company will push bite-sized videos, news items and games to consume without unlocking your phone, curated from its m (Forbes)
  • Duterte, the economy and the elusive Philippines unicorn (Nikkei)
  • Thai Baht’s Slide Fuels One of Emerging Asia’s Top Sector Rallies; Thai electronics parts makers jumped about 10% in April (Bloomberg)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

  • Aidoc, the AI solution for medical imaging analysis, raises $27M Series B (TC)
  • Emotionally intelligent AI will respond to how you feel (TNW)
  • PathAI raises $60 million for its computer vision-based pathogen detection technology (TC)
  • Strong investor demand boosts Pinterest and Zoom IPOs (FT)
  • Unpacking Pinterest’s IPO expectations (TC); Meet Pinterest’s Little-Known Third Cofounder, Who Has A $675 Million Stake (Forbes); Pinterest prices shares at $19 in ‘down round’ IPO (FT); Pinterest’s IPO Could Be Make or Break for Uber and Other ‘Unicorns’ (Barron’s)
  • Zoom Video IPO: 5 things to know about the videoconferencing company (MW); Video conferencing start-up Zoom prices shares at $36; IPO sets market capitalisation at $10.5bn, ten times higher than last funding valuation (FT)
  • Salesforce is buying MapAnything, a startup that raised over $84 million (TC)
  • Aptiv takes its self-driving car ambitions (and tech) to China (TC)
  • NXP eyes China’s auto radar market with investment in Hawkeye Technology (KRA)
  • Back on trend? H&M makes AI, loyalty drive to ride fashion cycle (Reuters)
  • Hey, Siri: from virtual assistant to BFF? If we end up befriending AIs, will we still want to set them mundane tasks? (FT)
  • Roku Stock Rises After Analyst Says Disney+ Will Add $1 Billion in Value (Barron’s)
  • Square Stock’s Rally Is Running Out of Steam, Analyst Says (Barron’s)

Life

  • Chinese used car online seller Uxin’s share price plummeted 36% on Tuesday after a short-seller issued an report saying the company was notorious in China “as a cheat.” (Technode, JCR)
  • How Setbacks Help Us Discover What We Truly Love: “The truth is, we just don’t know whether we actually are in love with the process until we experience the setbacks.” (Heleo)
  • A Stoic’s Key to Living with Presence: Seneca on How to Manage Your Time (BP)
  • How To Adapt The “Serenity Prayer” For Business Decision-Making (LinkedIn)

Filed under Innovation

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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