Hong Kong Startup News Round Up - 17 Mar 2019

Gatecoin crypto exchange to shut down on court's orders

Gatecoin, a Hong Kong crypto exchange, has been granted a winding-up order by a court. Gatecoin has suffered financial difficulty and is no longer able to support its operation after an unsuccessful attempt to recover funds lost in a dispute with a former payment services provider.

The company distributed the message to customers via their corporate website. There, the team behind the project explained the suspension of the service occurred after months of battling to stay afloat, and ultimately, a court order to wind-up and cease operations immediately.

In its public statement, the company blamed its prior payment service provider (PSP) for this situation. The exchange said it began having issues with banking services in September 2018, after the sudden freeze of its bank accounts in Hong Kong.

Grab, Southeast Asia's most valuable startup raises US$1.5 billion

Grab, the Singaporean ride-hailing platform, has raised US$1.5 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund, bringing its ongoing Series H round to $4.5 billion. Other investors in that round include Toyota, Booking Holdings, Microsoft and Hyundai.

The Southeast Asian ridesharing company said the new money will be used to further its super app strategy, which is aimed at making its service a daily app for consumers, but it is also likely to be used to battle rival Go-Jek.

Token2049 Highlights: Ping AN and SingularityNET collaboration

Token2049, the premier crypto event of Asia, took place in Hong Kong this week. The two-day conference brought together the world’s leading blockchain developers, investors, and entrepreneurs for a series of tracks centering on the emerging crypto market and its ever growing ecosystem in the region

Press Release: Ping An Technology and SingularityNET have reached the intention to collaborate in the field of Artificial Intelligence, possible future directions for collaboration include (but are not limited to) OCR and model training. - Mr. Bai Meng, AI BD lead for Ping An

SingularityNET is a decentralized marketplace for AI algorithms. SingularityNET lets anyone monetize AI algorithms, allowing companies, organizations, and developers to buy and sell AI at scale. Ping An, a Chinese holding conglomerate, is the world’s most valuable insurance brand and was ranked as the third largest global financial services company in 2018.

Miro AI: Winner of 2019 SXSW Pitch Contest

Miro AI, the global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for endurance sports, was crowned the winner of the Sports & Performance category SXSW Pitch 2019! Miro AI was chosen the winner among a pool of 8 highly exceptional sports tech startups from around the globe.

The eleventh annual SXSW Pitch presented by CyndX took place in front of a live audience and panel of expert judges to discover advancements in various sectors of emerging technology (Artificial Intelligence, AR/VR, Blockchain, Hyper-Connected Communities...). Find out about the other categories and their respective winners here.

Soundbrenner breaks record: 500,000 unique musicians every month

In 3 years, The Metronome by Soundbrenner has officially crossed the mark of 500,000 unique musicians playing music with their app — that is every single month. They’re also the #1 search result for the keyword ‘metronome’ for both the iOS App Store and the Google Play store in many countries across the globe. And finally, throughout 2018, no other metronome app received a higher rating, or more reviews, than The Metronome by Soundbrenner.