A founder sued by his former startup

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Shutting down a startup and then launching a brand new one sounds like a straightforward plan. Haven’t we all read a couple of stories of founders who had failed and closed down their companies – and then succeeded with their next big idea?

But the process is actually far more complicated than that, and today, we look at one such founder who got himself wrapped up in an ongoing legal dispute with his previous startup.

Read the full story or scroll down for a summary.

Here are your quick bytes for today:

1️⃣ Uber says “not yet” to its previous announcement of relocating its Asia-Pacific hub to Hong Kong. For now, the US-based ride-hailing giant plans to keep its APAC hub in Singapore until at least December 2022.

2️⃣ GudangAda, a business-to-business marketplace in Indonesia, had let go of 25 employees. This comes after it recruited former executives at Sorabel and Stoqo — both startups that were shuttered due to the economic impact of Covid-19.

3️⃣ It’s a two-in-one celebration for Thailand’s Line Man, the delivery app of messaging app Line, as it has banked US$110 million and merged with local food app Wongnai Media. Tech startups are rising in Thailand, and the country is in a good position to “be the cannabis tech hub not just of Southeast Asia but of the world,” said an investor.

4️⃣ Huawei may be feeling the heat from U.S. government restrictions, but it still managed to take the top handset-maker spot from Samsung, thanks to its dominance in China sales. The Chinese tech giant has come a long way: Founder Ren Zhengfei had been part of the Communist Party before moving to Shenzhen to work in the city’s then-fledgling electronics industry. He founded Huawei in 1987.

5️⃣ Japan is also looking to restrict Chinese apps such as Tiktok. This comes after India banned the video app last month and the ongoing deliberation by the U.S. government to do the same.

6️⃣ Chinese food delivery giant Meituan-Dianping has blocked the use of Alipay as a payment option for some users on its super app. It is likely a move to push users to use its own Meituan Pay as it advances its super-app ambition and fends off pressure from Alibaba.

Despite the pandemic, Meituan-Dianping has had a great 2020 so far, with its market cap hitting an all-time high at US$157 billion this month. It’s the only food delivery giant that turned a profit in 2019, making a great case study for counterparts such as Uber, Grab, Grubhub, and Gojek.

Getting sued by your former startup is something different

Sy Phong Bui is the founder of Telio, a business-to-business ecommerce marketplace in Vietnam. He is also the former founder of fintech company OnOnPay, whose board of directors has an ongoing lawsuit filed against him.

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