RISE raises US$8M seed round after posting rapid growth since its inception
RISE, a tech-enabled corporate innovation platform, has announced the closing of a US$8M seed financing round, led by Metro Company Limited, D2C Inc. (Japan), and Chanwanich Company, among others.
Additionally, RISE has announced plans to scale its services beyond Thailand to Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
“For us, speed is the winning key in the game of innovation. With the global network of RISE, we strongly trust that RISE is able to connect best-in-class tech startups via its Global Accelerator programme to collaborate with our internal team in order to accelerate our innovation,” said Keibun Go, Global Business Alliance Head of D2C.
Founded in 2016, RISE has been growing rapidly and claims to have now hit USD 1 billion in impact through its platform across Thailand. Currently, the company has a network of more than 400 corporations, 2,000 startups, and over 20,000 corporate innovators globally.
Investree raises US$23.5M to support SMEs in Indonesia
Investree, a B2B marketplace for financial lending in Indonesia, has secured US$23.5 million in a Series C funding round, co-led by MUIP, the venture arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and BRI Ventures.
With the new funds, Investree plans to further develop its services to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia and to expand activities in the Philippines and Thailand.
“Southeast Asia has significant potential in terms of SME lending, and we see that Investree already has a proven strategy and management expertise that really makes it the standout player in the fintech lending industry in Indonesia and wider Southeast Asia as it grows overseas,” said Nobutake Suzuki, President and CEO of MUIP.
Singaporeans spend more on entertainment products during COVID-19 crisis: Revolut report
As much as 55 per cent of Singaporeans spend on entertainment-focused products during the COVID-19 crisis, says a Fintech super app Revolut, with most users ending up buying digital goods, specifically video games, with Steam Games (+104 per cent) and Nintendo (+82 per cent) seeing the highest increase.
The report is based on data gathered between February 2 and March 31, 2020.
There were also more purchases seen in apps and software as more working professionals begin work from home. Some of these include Zoom (+200 per cent), VPN subscriptions (+20 per cent), Skype (+18 per cent) and LinkedIn subscriptions (+22 per cent).
Although foreign in-store transactions saw a decrease of 34 per cent, local in-store and e-commerce saw a spike of growth (30 per cent and 35 per cent respectively).
WeWork sues SoftBank for pulling out of US$3B deal
Commercial real estate company WeWork has sued SoftBank for pulling out of a US$3 billion deal on the ground of ‘pending criminal and civil investigations’ surrounding the company and its co-founder Adam Neumann, say a CNBC report.
According to the deal drafted in November 2019, Softbank would buy US$3 billion in shares from existing shareholders, and SoftBank jointly agreed with the co-working company to set performance milestones that would be met in exchange for the secondary liquidity
Softbank retaliated saying that several of the milestones agreed in the contract was not met by WeWork.
“Nothing in the Special Committee’s filing today credibly refutes SoftBank’s decision to terminate the tender offer. Several of the conditions the Special Committee, WeWork, Adam Neumann, SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund agreed to last October as requirements for completing the tender were not met as of April 1, 2020,” said a SoftBank spokesperson.
“Their filing today is a desperate and misguided attempt now to rewrite that agreement and to rewrite the history of the past six months,” the person added.
WeWork’s Special Board Committee said that it “regrets the fact that SoftBank continues to put its own interests ahead of those of WeWork’s minority stockholders,” according to a press statement.
BRI Remittance joins hands with Everest to enable Europe-Indonesia money exchange
Decentralised digital payments SaaS provider Everest has announced a partnership with BRI Remittance, a subsidiary of Bank Rakyat Indonesia, to execute money exchange across Europe-Indonesia borders.
Everest aims to stop the neglect that those unidentified individuals face when banks and financial systems don’t provide services due to the lack of identification. The company’s device-free solution can identify people and transfer value, covering 196 countries and 4,000 different IDs.
“BRI Remittance’s vision is to be the leading global money service provider. To accomplish this mission, we established joint co-operation with Everest, the leading solution combining KYC, AML, compliance, and digital money movement, all through an integrated blockchain platform,” said BRI Remittance Executive Director Gigieh Perkasa.
This strategic partnership is also expected to increase business relations within the Indonesia-Europe corridor.
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Image Credit – RISE, Revolut, Eloise Ambursley
The post Afternoon News Roundup: Indonesia’s Investree nets US$23.5M; Thailand’s RISE raises US$8M appeared first on e27.