In today’s briefing:
- Familymart Adding Variety Flavour to Chain Under Nigo
- Chinese Startup Zhipu AI Raises $207 Million Funding in Less Than a Month

Familymart Adding Variety Flavour to Chain Under Nigo
- Ever since Itochu Shoji acquired Familymart, it has tried to leverage the more than 16,000 stores to sell product from its many other interests, including clothing.
- With Convenience Wear a clear hit, it is now going further, adding new cosmetics and other products for the young.
- It is also bringing in The Bathing Ape’s founder to turn Familymart into a new kind of Conbini-Variety store.
Chinese Startup Zhipu AI Raises $207 Million Funding in Less Than a Month
- Zhipu AI, a leading Chinese generative artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, has raised 500 million yuan ($69 million) in new funding less than a month after securing 1 billion yuan ($138 million) in its previous round.
- On Thursday, Huafa Group, a conglomerate backed by the Zhuhai city government in Guangdong province, announced its investment in Zhipu AI, to drive technical innovation and business development for Zhipu’s foundation model, GLM.
- The same day, Huafa and the Zhuhai National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone signed a cooperation agreement with Zhipu to speed up the industrial application of its AI models.