Monthly Reading| Plug and Play Global Trends in July

You can find all the great events of Plug and Play China here for this July that just passed!

Trends in China

▎Star of Startups in June 2019: Bestcovered

Investors of Plug and Play China choose a star startup company with technology, market and prospects every month. This month’s Star of Startups is Bestcovered, a personalized insurance provider. 

Based on multifactor data analysis and machine learning, Bestcovered designs and develops innovative life insurance solution for people with old age and high risks. At present, it has launched many leading personalized insurance products in the market and provided services to over 10 million aimed users in outdoor sports, cognitive impairment and other fields. Bestcovered’s core team members come from well-known insurance companies and technology companies from China and Silicon Valley

Contact us for more information of Bestcovered:

ventures@pnpchina.com 

▎The grand opening of Plug and Play China in Wuxi 

The Launching Ceremony of Global Innovation Accelerator of Plug and Play China was successfully held in the National Software Park of Xinwu District in Wuxi. Over 100 guests including leaders of relevant departments of Wuxi Municipal Government and representatives from more than 20 well-known global corporates and startups from the verticals of Internet of Things, Supply Chain, Health & Wellness, Energy & Sustainability, have participated the ceremony and discussed the topics of scientific and technological innovation ecological construction, corporate innovation development strategy and platform innovation cooperation of Wuxi and so on.

▎Plug and Play China has entered into cooperation with Germany TÜV Rheinland Group, a leading international test, inspection and certification agency.

The two sides will cooperate on Internet of Things products, warehousing robots, automobile connectivity and functional safety to help Chinese startups develop innovative solutions with security and compliance concepts, and add new vitality to China’s science and technology innovation ecosystem. 

▎Merck, a global leading technology company, will join hands with Plug and Play to explore China’s innovation ecosystem.

Merck is a global leading technology company focusing on three major fields of medical health, life sciences and high-performance materials. China is one of Merck’s important strategic countries in the world, and has become a global innovation center of Merck. Merck China Innovation Center actively searches, incubates and invests in emerging technologies to expand cross-business innovation opportunities.

▎Guandata announces the completion of Round B financing with RMB 100 million yuan level.

Guandata was founded inSeptember 2016. With the mission of “Make Decision-Making Smarter”, it is committed to providing new generation of intelligent data analysis products and industry best data analysis practices for customers in related fields such as pan-retail and pan-consumption.

In April this year, Guandata was selected into Plug and Play China Brand and Retail Acceleration Program and won unanimous praise from corporate partners. 

▎Plug and Play China &VVFIN Short Video Financing Platform jointly held the special road show "Artificial Intelligence" 

On July 25, a special road show on artificial intelligence, co-sponsored by Plug and Play China, Institute of Fintech Research of Tsinghua University and VVFIN platform, was held at the headquarter of Plug and Play China, IMway. At the same time, financial institutions such as equity investment and funds like Tsing Ventures, Innoangel Fund, PreAngel, Plug and Play Investment and other financial institutions also participated in it. Aiming at the idea of creating an ecosphere of Sci-tech investment & financing and linking up the upstream and downstream industries, this road show invited incubators, industrial parks and other units. 

▎Plug and Play Energy & Sustainability Program July Innovation Acceleration Focus Week Officially Opened in Shanghai

In the Focus Week, Plug and Play Energy & Sustainability Project specifically invited the startup companies in the first batch, angel investors, public relations experts of startup enterprises, several venture capital institutions and mentors in government innovation field to participate in the July Focus Day.

▎2019 Smart China Expo FPGA Innovation Global Competition Domestic Division-Wuhan

Wuhan Division was co-sponsored by Plug and Play China, Intel Innovation Accelerator, Intel FPGA China Innovation Center and AWCloud. On July 23, the judges of Wuhan Division held a final judgment at Plug and Play China headquarter, and finally selected Top 12 startups to enter the Final of the Wuhan Division. 

▎Portfolio company PikPik won the 2nd place of CVPR2019 workshop and challenge on learned image compression.

PikPik focused on the field of video compression, exploring end-to-end video compression technology based on in-depth learning. It has independently developed many core algorithms and published papers in top international conference periodicals in the fields of computer vision and multimedia processing, such as CVPR, TCSVT, TIP, TMM, etc. 

In 2019, PikPik received several millions yuan of Angel Round Investment from Plug and Play China and ChinaRock Capital. 

▎2019 Zhengzhou Jinshui “Encourage and Attract Talents”Global High-end Talents’Scientific and Technological Achievements Conversion Docking Meeting and “Overseas High-level Talents Tour in Jinshui District”was successfully held in Zhengzhou.

This event is sponsored by Zhengzhou Science and Technology Bureau, and undertook by Zhengzhou Jinshui Science & Technology Park Management Committee and Zhengzhou Jinshui Science&Technology Bureau, and co-sponsored by Plug and Play China Zhengzhou, Sias Park, and the US Startups Exchange, aiming at introducing high-level overseas talents and projects.

Global Trends

 ▎Hippo Insurance got Round D financing and became the emerging unicorn company.

Hippo is a new type insurance company, using more intelligent and technology-driven methods to provide direct and active family insurance. Its use of modern technology provided simpler processes, wider coverage, and new ways to take care of our families.

Earlier, when Hippo was valued at $100 million, Plug and Play had invested $100 thousand in it.

▎The Round D financing of German Fintech startup N26 reached $470 million.

N26 provides mobile banking solutions for users in the EU. Its services include transnational transfer, investment, overdraft, cash withdrawal and so on. Recently, the N26 Round D financing has risen from $170 million to $470 million, with a high valuation of $3.5 billion. It has become the most valuable German startup company and ranks among the Top10 most valuable Fintech companies in the world.

In 2013 when the unicorn company started, it got the seed investments from Plug and Play.

▎Two Corporates Join Plug and Play Ecosystem

New partners include All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan's largest five-star Airlines and ebm-papst, a leader in fan and motor technology headquartered in Mulfingen, Germany. 

▎Plug and Play completed 36 investments in the second quarter of 2019 and was selected as one of the most active investment institutions in the second quarter.