Last Week in Tech: The Lazada-Uber-Netflix alliance and SEAsia’s sinking funding

From left to right: Y Combinator’s Kevin Hale, 500 Startups’ Dave McClure, and Movida’s Taizo Son taking a selfie on stage at Tech in Asia Tokyo 2014.

Why are people upset over a US$400 juicer, and how is the Lazada-Alibaba tag team going to overtake Amazon? Why is Taizo Son moving to Singapore? Welcome to Last Week in Tech, where we look back at what happened in the tech and startup ecosystem in the last seven days. We’ve also collated a list of regional events to look forward to in the week ahead for your convenience.

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Quick Bites

A snapshot of last week’s news in sentences.

Juicero’s juice packs taste the same even if you squeeze them by hand without their machine. Photo credit: Juicero.

The price of juice

• People realize that Silicon Valley’s Juicero is upselling a US$400 Juicer that can be easily replaced by their hands. (Ellen Huet and Olivia Zaleski / Bloomberg)
• In response, Juicero’s new CEO tries to convince people that its product is not all about the product’s packet-pressing abilities. (Jeff Dunn / Medium)
• Juicero is also suing another company for selling a similarly overpriced juicer with a name that resembles the word “juice.” Is this really the best time for a juice war? (Megan Geuss / Ars Technica)

Meanwhile, the rest of Silicon Valley wants to change the world

• Elon Musk tells Leonardo Dicaprio: 100 Tesla Gigafactories could transition the whole world to sustainable energy. (Chelsea Gohd / Futurism)
• Mark Zuckerberg at the F8 Conference: Augmented reality could effectively replace smartphones, tablets, and TVs. (Matt Weinberger / Business Insider)

Alibaba steps it up

• Lazada, Alibaba-backed ecommerce platform, shows its hand with a service consolidating Taobao Collection, Netflix, Uber, and UberEats. Is it a game changer? (Michael Tegos / Tech in Asia)
• Lazada’s HelloPay Group also merges with Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial affiliate. (Eva Xiao / Tech in Asia)
• The merger might be in response to Alipay’s slipping stronghold as China’s payment leader – Tenpay has almost double the number of active users. (Eva Xiao / Tech in Asia)

This week in funding

Must-reads

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