News digest: Didi reportedly to raise another $2 billion funding, how will Uber respond?

• Uber faces an escalated brutal fight in China: its rival Didi Kuaidi is to close another $2 billion round. Last year Didi has raised $3 billion to subsidize rides in China.
• Tencent is secretly developing their self-driving car by partnering with Foxconn and a local EV maker. They are trying to hire Google’s self-driving car employees.
• Yes, Alibaba is working on cars but not a smart car yet: partnering with SAIC Motors, Alibaba has unveiled a hybrid car, and it is claimed it has Alibaba’s technologies in big data and cloud computing.
• Alibaba’s Ant Finance hires ex-Goldman Sachs Group banker Douglas Feagin as a senior vice president. This company closed a new private funding record $4.5 billion private round from Chinese sovereign wealth fund and large banks.
• Lenovo sets up a $500 million fund to invest in artificial intelligence, robot and cloud computing.

Deals

• Three Hong Kong startups, YEECHOO (clothing rental), Shopline (online shop builder), and GoGoVan (on-demand van service) received undisclosed amount of funding from Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, taking 20%-30% of the shares. What’s special about the fund is that the return of the investment will be directed back to the fund itself for future investment. Read more.
• Zhidian Hudong, which has an EV industry news web portal, a map app for EV charging station, EV rental service, valued at RMB 648 million ($99.7 million), raised RMB 128 million ($19.7 million) series A investment led by Guoxuan Group, and China High Tech Foundation participated in this round. Read more.
• Chuchujie, a shopping discovery platform for Taobao, raised series C RMB 1 billion ($153.9 million) round from SoftBank China, New Horizon Capital, Eternal Bell Venture Capital, Corner Stone Venture Capital. Read more.
• Shebaotong, an app for managing social security and insurance, raised series A RMB 30 million ($4.6 million) from Zhen Fund and Zhizhuo Capital. Read more.