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Today’s top tech news: Ant Financial invests in Vietnamese e-wallet, Facebook acquired a five-person startup

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Ant Financial acquires a sizeable minority stake in Vietnam’s e-wallet eMonkey- e27

Ant Financial, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has acquired a sizable minority stake in Vietnamese e-wallet eMonkey, says a Reuters report, citing three unnamed people aware of the deal.

With this deal, Ant Financial is attempting to gain entry into Vietnam with a population of nearly 100 million people, a quarter of who are under 25. Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the region.

The Chinese fintech giant will have significant influence and provide technical expertise to the e-wallet.

Ant Financial has already obtained operating licences from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

Animoca appoints Raymond Shuai as finance director- Press release

Animoca Brands Corporation Limited has appointed Raymond Shuai as the finance director.

Shuai has over 17 years of experience in finance and industry. His professional career began in 2002 at Deloitte & Touche, followed by JP Morgan in 2004, then Ambrian Partners from 2006 to 2008, where he gained substantial experience in audit, operations, fundraising, M&A, and IPOs, and advised corporates listed on the London Stock Exchange.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and was a CFA Charterholder from 2006 to 2014.

OYO appoints Ankit Gupta as COO to lead Frontier businesses for India and South Asia- Press release

OYO Hotels & Homes, announced the appointment of Ankit Gupta as Chief Operating Officer & SVP – Frontier Businesses, OYO India & South Asia.

This appointment comes as a part of the company’s efforts to continue to invest in and attract world-class leadership, to drive innovation and growth in the company. Frontier businesses will comprise OYO’s self-operated hotels (OYO Townhouse, Collection O, SilverKey), student housing and co-living and OYO Home businesses.

Ankit has over 14 years of experience and is entrusted with the responsibility to strengthen and consolidate existing opportunities in the co-living, student housing, self-operated hotels, and rental homes businesses of the company.

He has moved on from a 14-year long tenure at McKinsey & Co where, as a tenured Partner, he was the global leader of their real estate transformation practice with a mandate to drive P&L impact improvement (scale & profitability) for real estate clients.

Facebook acquired a startup to build a live shopping feature- Bloomberg

Facebook Inc. acquired a small video-shopping startup earlier this year to help build a live shopping feature inside the company’s Marketplace product, according to a person familiar with the plans, said a Bloomberg report.

The social media company bought Packagd, a five-person company founded by Eric Feng, a former partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and most of the startup’s team joined Facebook in September.

Packagd was building a shopping product for YouTube videos. “Think of it as a re-imagination of QVC or a home shopping network,” Feng said in a 2017 interview with Bloomberg Television’s Emily Chang.

The acquisition by Facebook wasn’t announced, but the small team is now working on a project for Marketplace, which would let users make purchases while watching live video broadcasts.

Facebook tested a similar product a year ago in Thailand, though that effort didn’t include a way to buy merchandise directly from the video and has been shut down, a person familiar with the matter said.

Image credit: Glen Carrie on Unsplash

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