Elon Musk
Elon Musk closes Twitter buy for US$44B, fires CEO and CFO
Aside from CEO Parag Agrawal, Musk also fired CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Head of Legal Policy, trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde; The deal follows months of Musk’s journey to take full control of the social media platform.
Square Peg closes new US$550M fund
The global VC firm will continue to invest in consumer internet, fintech, edutech, future of work, healthtech, and SaaS in SEA, Australia, and Israel; The firm has backed 60+ companies, including LottieFiles, Doctor Anywhere, and FinAccel.
Blibli parent sells 6.6B more shares in IPO, nets US$513M
The Jakarta-based firm upped its quota for sale to 17.8B shares at US$0.029 each from the 11.2B shares at US$0.026 to US$0.03 apiece; Anticipating a US$3.5B valuation, the company will list on the IDX on November 7.
SEA digital economy to grow in 2022 despite headwinds: report
The digital economy is poised to hit US$200B in GMV in 2022; In 2030, this figure could skyrocket to up to US$1 trillion, according to a joint report by Google, Temasek, and Bain and Company.
Lamudi parent EMPG raises US$200M funding, eying IPO listing
This round was led by Jared Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners, with new funding from KCK, Acacia Partners, plus several other investors, including Prosus, which maintains its stake.
Temasek’s 65 Equity Partners pours US$105M into SG’s Cityneon
Neon creates experiences using tangible and intangible environments; It brings these experiences to locations for clients like Disney, Universal, Marvel, and Hasbro, among others; The company also announced that it would be rebranding to Neon.
HK fintech firm Reap banks US$40M Series A
The investors are Acorn Pacific Ventures, HashKey Capital, and Arcadia Funds; Reap’s platform helps users access payables management and international payments and collections.
Indonesian solar energy firm Xurya banks US$33M Series A+
The lead investor is Mitsui & Co; Xurya helps partners achieve sustainability, economic, and financial goals by lending expertise on sourcing, developing, operating, and maintaining distributed solar projects.
Shopify invests in WhatsApp CRM firm WATI’s US$23M round
Other investors are Tiger Global, DST Global, Sequoia India & SEA; The firm enables companies to have scalable and personalised conversations using customer engagement software built on WhatsApp’s business API.
SG’s cloud communications firm Toku nets US$5M Series A+
Lead investors are Delivery Hero Ventures and Malaysia’s OSK Ventures; Toku will use the fresh money to establish a presence in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines.
KYAN Therapeutics bags US$5M to bridge the cancer care gap using tech
The investors are Altara Ventures, SEEDS Capital, and K3 Ventures; From drug development to personalised medicine, KYAN offers a solution to identify the optimal outcome for millions of possible drug-dose combinations.
Ex-Gojek VP’s mobile café network Jago nets US$2.2M pre-Series A
The investors are Intudo Ventures, Beenext, CyberAgent Capital, and Arkblu Capital; Jago will use the funds to expand to over 200 mobile cafés, covering 20 hyperlocal areas in Jakarta.
Malaysian fleet fuel expense management startup BayaPay raises funding
The investor is Winacore Capital; BayaPay offers BayaFuel, a card to enable businesses to make secure payments within set limits and controls across all fleet-related expense management.
Facebook unveils the 2022 APAC cohort for Community Accelerator Program
Throughout the 4-month programme, participants will receive training from experts and coaches through a customised curriculum to help them organise and strengthen their community while connecting with community leaders globally.
Investments in startups grew by more than 45% in 2021
As a signal of confidence in the startup investment scene, funding activities have increased exponentially to reach US$10.5B in 2021; Venture funding within H1 2022 alone has reached US$5.8B.
Wavemaker Impact, Bill Gates’s VC arm, Temasek launch agritech startup
The startup aims to bring together climate-tech, agri-food, and venture-building capabilities to accelerate rice decarbonisation in SEA and the rest of Asia; The three VC firms have also invested in the company, whose name is yet to be disclosed.
Singapore’s NFT startup AWST raises US$1.7M funding
The investors are East Ventures, 500 Global, and Antler; AWST integrates companies and brands into the Web3 landscape by helping them launch NFT collections across different blockchain protocols.
UOB’s greentech accelerator names 12 startups in first batch
Launched in May this year, Greentech Accelerator aims to inject ~US$105K into startups that create solutions to help the environment, such as energy efficiency products, zero-waste supply chains, as well as carbon management and reporting software.
Stripe brings flagship services to Thailand
The fintech firm will be rolling out support for subscriptions and recurring payments, ecommerce transactions, automated payments, and fraud detection and prevention, among other services.
Temasek shuffles executives, CFO appointed as Singapore head
Leong Wai Leng, who has held the role of CFO for 16 years, will step down to be appointed as the firm’s Singapore market president; Deputy CFO Png Chin Yee will be elevated as the CFO from January 1.
Should Southeast Asian startups look to transition from Web2 to Web3?
Shaun Heng, Qin En Looi, Rishi Randhawa, and Rachael De Foe, Eddie Thai will discuss ‘How Web2 Founders can leverage Web3 technologies and business models and Embrace the New Internet’ today at Echelon 2022.
How iPrice Group navigates the seven SEAs
A deep-dive into how Malaysia-headquartered iPrice built a successful price comparison venture across the region despite all the odds.
Dream loud, dream big and dream now: Surbhi Agarwal of Yellow.ai
Yellow.ai’s senior VP and Head of Marketing Surbhi Agarwal about how she’s driving organisational efficiency by building high-performing teams.
How startups and VCs can propel Indonesia’s energy transition
As Indonesia continues on its rapid path to modernisation, demand for the internet will steadily increase, and so too will its energy needs.
Going the extra mile in digital innovation for Singapore’s commuter experience
Singapore’s MRT system is no longer just a train network; it has become a landmark; With vibrant transit spaces designed for interactive commuter experience, taking the train is meant to be more of an enjoyable trip than a tedious chore.
East Ventures-backed Mighty Jaxx launches first metaverse project
The Spooky Season project is a collaboration with US-based collectibles giant Sideshow Collectibles and can be accessed on Animoca Brands’s The Sandbox from October 28 to November 11.
Vertu Metavertu is a new “Web3” smartphone that costs US$41K
The super-high-end mobile device brand asserts that it has “10T IPFS” storage, a “metaspace encrypted space” and the A5 “Privacy Chip” necessary to secure the NFTs the smartphone can apparently create from any photo taken with its camera in one step.
‘Phishing scammer has drained US$1M in crypto and NFTs in Past 24 Hours’
The two biggest victims, 0x02a and 0x626, lost a combined US$370K after signing transactions on phishing sites run by the prolific scammer, according to ZachXBT.
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