Brief: Ofo slashes India presence

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Ofo makes staff cuts and rolls back operations (India). The Chinese bike-sharing startup has reportedly fired staff in India and is winding up operations in all cities in the country except Pune. Rumors of a cash crunch and large-scale layoffs in Ofo’s home and overseas branches have been circulating in the past few months. Co-founder Yu Xin recently denied claims that the company was slashing its China workforce by half and shutting down operations in other countries. (TechNode)

Other news

Property listing platform Zhuge.com banks US$22.6 million in Sequoia-led series B funding (China). The startup will use the new capital for branding, product development, and urban expansion. Zhuge has raised a total of nearly US$45.3 million within two years. (China Money Network)

American Express-backed IndiaLends raises US$10 million in series B round (India). The round was led by London-based ACPI Investment Managers and India-focused venture firm Ganesh Ventures, with existing investor AmEx Ventures – the VC arm of American Express – also participating. The three-year-old startup, which runs a credit scoring and analytics platform for consumer lending, will use the funding to launch new products for the ecommerce industry, as well as for recruitment and tech development. (IndiaLends)

Referral-based recruiting platform Wanted acquires Kredit Job for undisclosed amount (South Korea). The buyout will give Wanted exclusive access to data that Kredit Job has gathered covering 420,000 companies in South Korea. Wanted has operations in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, and said it’s eyeing further expansion in Southeast Asia. (DealStreetAsia)

Crypto.com domain sold to crypto-card startup Monaco (Hong Kong). Matt Blaze, a prominent cryptology researcher and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, registered the domain name in 1993. The price that Monaco paid for the domain name was not disclosed, though its value could be worth up to US$10 million, according to estimates by experts. (TechCrunch)

Central bank approves two new cryptocurrency exchanges (The Philippines). Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has accredited Virtual Currency Philippines and ETranss, bringing the number of approved digital currency exchanges in the country to five in total. The move comes amid increased cryptocurrency transactions, along with growing government scrutiny of such activities. (Business World)

Autonomous driving company JingChi hit by internal bust-up (China). Co-founder Pan Sining has filed suit in a Beijing district court, alleging that Lu Qing, JingChi’s chief financial officer, and others illegally removed him from his positions as the company’s legal representative and executive director. (TechNode)

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