Daily Crunch: China postpones Ant Group IPO

NelsonG · November 3, 2020

Yes, there’s a high-stakes presidential election underway, but tech news doesn’t stop completely: Chinese regulators pull the brakes on Ant Group’s IPO, Spotify adds standalone streaming support on Apple Watch and PayPal outlines its plans for 2021. This is your Daily Crunch for November 3, 2020.

The big story: China postpones Ant Group IPO

The Shanghai stock exchange has postponed Ant Group’s IPO a day after Chinese regulators held a closed-door meeting with Jack Ma and other company executives. The company has also halted plans for its public listing in Hong Kong.

Ant Group, a financial technology giant that spun out of Alibaba, was previously on track to raise $34.5 billion in the world’s largest IPO. It’s not exactly clear why the offering was called off, but Alibaba’s founder Ma recently gave a speech criticizing China’s financial regulation.

“We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience brought to investors,” the company said in a statement. “We will properly handle follow-up matters following compliance regulations of the two exchanges.”

The tech giants

Spotify adds standalone streaming support to its Apple Watch app — The feature was spotted in testing back in September, and it arrives roughly two years after Spotify first debuted its dedicated Apple Watch app.

Twitter hides Trump tweet attacking Supreme Court’s decision on Pennsylvania ballots — In a preview of what to expect in the coming days, President Trump pushed the limits on Twitter’s election-specific policies Monday night.

PayPal details its digital wallet plans for 2021, including crypto, Honey integration and more — The company said it plans to roll out substantial changes to its mobile apps over the next year, including support for enhanced direct deposit, crypto and all of Honey’s shopping tools.

Startups, funding and venture capital

REEF Technology raises $700M from SoftBank and others to remake parking lots — REEF began its life as Miami-based ParkJockey, providing hardware, software and management services for parking lots.

Udacity raises $75M in debt, says its tech education business is profitable after enterprise pivot — The online learning company is now focused on winning over business customers.

Walmart reportedly ends contract with inventory robotics startup Bossa Nova — Walmart has reportedly pulled the plug on one of its highest-profile partnerships.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Four takeaways from fintech VC in Q3 2020 — The latest on insurtech, banking, wealth management and payments startups.

Gaming rules the entertainment industry, so why aren’t investors showing up? — Venture activity doesn’t seem to match the size of the games market.

How startups can shake up their first idea and still crush the market — Some thoughts on the ol’ startup pivot.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Tech stocks rip higher on Election Day — The gains came long before any results that would indicate the election’s winner.

NBC News launches an iOS 14 widget that puts election results on your home screen — NBC News allows users to customize a series of widgets with information related to early voting stats, polls, current election results and more.

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