Welcome to the Tech Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of key developments in the food and mobility tech industries.
This week’s highlights:
- Uber cashes in on Didi IPO. The ride-sharing race is heating up as Chinese major ride-sharing company Didi, also known as the “Uber of China” and an actual Uber partner, debuted on the NYSE in one of the biggest China based companies listings in the United States. Raising $4.4 billion from the stock sale, Didi’s IPO is the second biggest US share offering by a Chinese company, followed by Alibaba’s in 2014. (Yahoo News)
- Uber has partnered with TotalEnergies to support its electric vehicle (“EV”) efforts in France. Through the partnership, TotalEnergies will aid the transition of Uber’s drivers to electric mobility, by helping in vehicle conversion and providing easier access to charge points. (Yahoo News)
- Samokat, Russia’s biggest instant grocery-delivery service by orders, is aiming to be the first of its peers to take a share of the booming U.S. market. The founders of the St. Petersburg-based company are launching the service, to be called Buyk, in August in New York. (Bloomberg)
- Indian food delivery giant Zomato, which is working to explore the public markets later this year, has reached an agreement to invest $100 million in online grocer Grofers for about 10% stake in the seven-year-old startup, according to sources. (TechCrunch)
- Meituan’s Wang Xing made an appearance at an official Chinese state celebration on Thursday, signaling the chief executive officer of the online platform and his company may be back in Beijing’s favor following a controversy over a poem he posted. (Bloomberg)
- Zipline, the world’s only drone delivery service operating at scale, has raised $250 million and more than doubled its valuation to $2.75 billion as it seeks to keep up with demand unleashed during the pandemic. Founded in 2014, the California-headquartered start-up has made its name in Africa by supplying hospitals with blood, medicine and vaccines, completing more than 150,000 missions in the past five years. (Financial Times)
- Big tech companies said Thursday’s breakthrough in negotiations over a global tax overhaul was a step toward avoiding a patchwork of overlapping national taxes. But executives and trade bodies said they still need to see those tax regimes disappear before calling the deal a win. (Wall Street Journal)
- U.S. President Joe Biden has a two-step strategy to cut tailpipe emissions, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases: First, restore the standards to roughly the level set by President Barack Obama. Then, tighten them even further, with an aim of making the electric car the dominant vehicle sold in the United States. (The New York Times)
- Researchers in Britain and the United States have found ways to recycle electric vehicle batteries that can drastically cut costs and carbon emissions, shoring up sustainable supplies for an expected surge in demand. (Reuters)