JULYASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK9BYD, a Chinese automaker, announced on Tuesday that it will invest 3 billion reais ($620.17 million) in a new industrial complex in northeastern Brazil, with the goal of increasing local production and offering more competitive prices. The three-plant complex will be built in the Camacari industrial park in the northeastern state of Bahia, on land previously occupied by a Ford plant that will close in 2021.The announcement follows a reported government push to incentivize BYD to build a new electric car hub in the state after Ford closed its plant there. The plants are expected to begin operations in mid-2024.One of the plants will be dedicated to production of chassis for buses and electric trucks, BYD said in a statement. The second plant will be focused on hybrid and electric cars with an initial production estimated at 150,000 cars per year, while the third will process lithium and iron phosphate for the foreign market. NEWSROOMBYD TO INVEST $620 MILLION IN BRAZIL TO IMPROVE LOCAL PRODUCTIONNeedle, a Singapore-based AI marketer, has raised $1.2 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round spearheaded by local accelerator Iterative. In addition to Rainforest Founder JJ Chai, Ethos Fund and Goldbell Financial Services participated. The cash will be used to expand the startup's personnel, which will include data scientists, AI trainers, and engineers."It's never been easier to start a business, and it's also never been harder to grow one. New brands need to find customers on multiple channels and transact with them on multiple platforms. On average, they are using over ten tools which is also a lot of data to make sense of and a lot of decisions to make. At Needle, we want to help founders cut through the noise, make sense of their data, and point them where to focus," said Kiyan Foroughi, CEO and Co-Founder of Needle.Needle was formed by Foroughi and other seasoned e-Commerce entrepreneurs and operators. Foroughi, a serial entrepreneur, previously launched Electric8. He also serves as a seed investor in Ometria. He was previously the Managing Director of Shopee (Sea Group). AI MARKETING FIRM NEEDLE SECURES $1.2 MILLION IN ITS PRE-SEED ROUND
< Page 8 | Page 10 >