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Singapore’s Matchmove acquires Shopmatic for $200M

MatchMove, Singapore-based embedded finance firm, said Monday it has acquired e-commerce specialist Shopmatic in a $200 million deal, creating an end-to-end embedded finance and ecommerce powerhouse. The combined company will enable MatchMove to provide its Banking-as-a-Service capabilities to Shopmatic’s ecosystem of over a million e-commerce small and…

True Platform raises $3.5M seed round led by January Capital

Vietnam-based business software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup True Platform announced Monday its recently closed $3.5 million Seed funding from January Capital, Alpha JWC Ventures, BEENEXT, FPT Corporation and other angel investors. The funding round was led by January Capital, a venture capital firm in Singapore with a portfolio of 40 startups from pre-seed…

Mass-market metaverse builder Virtualtech Frontier announces backing by 500 Global

Southeast Asian Metaverse Builder Virtualtech Frontier (VTF), which has an extensive background in developing virtual environments, NFTs, and game development, has announced its vision to create a high utility Metaverse platform. Backed by venture capital firm 500 Global, the fresh funds will go towards team expansion to serve their waitlist of customers.

Singapore’s The Growhub inks 5-year partnership with FIPWA to build Southeast Asia’s food bowl

The Growhub, Singapore-based one-stop farm to table solution for food traceability and data analytics, announced Friday that it has inked a 5-year lease agreement with the Food Innovation Precinct Western Australia (FIPWA), to establish Western Australia's first food innovation centre creating a corridor between the two countries for agri-innovation,…

The Sandbox acquires Uruguayan technology firm Cualit to accelerate Web3 development and metaverse growth

The Sandbox, a decentralized gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced Thursday it has acquired the Uruguayan company Cualit, a full-stack development technology firm experienced in gaming, to boost its Web3 and blockchain innovation and development capabilities. Cualit will become The Sandbox Uruguay, expanding The Sandbox global…

Singapore money transfer firm Nium secures license to expand payment services to Malaysia

Nium, a Singapore-based platform for modern money movement, announced Thursday the availability of real-time payments into Malaysia, further strengthening the company’s real-time payments capabilities across the globe. With the addition of Malaysia, it now processes over 75 percent of transactions globally in real-time, and increases its total real-time…

Indonesian culinary multi-brand firm Hangry eyes up to 100 outlets in 2022 while hunting for M&A targets

The company’s expansion will focus on Indonesia first before starting to expand regionally in 2024.

Indonesian FinTech firm Xendit raises $300M Series D funding co-led by Coatue and Insight Partners

Xendit, an Indonesia-based payments infrastructure platform, announced Thursday it closed $300 million in Series D funding, taking the total amount raised to $538 million to power the world’s fastest-growing digital economy. Coatue and Insight Partners co-led the round with additional investment from Accel, Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, EV Growth, Amasia,…

World’s first metaverse music label 0x0 launches in Taiwan

With the world hopping onto the non-fungible token (NFT) craze, Taiwan has taken the lead with the launch of 0x0, the world’s first metaverse music label. Created by a group of music enthusiasts, the artists that 0x0 represents exist in the form of NFT characters, putting out music and MVs with the characters as their identities. This maximizes the…

Singapore’s Oddle raises $5M in Pre-Series B funding

Funds from this bridge round will power product development and regional market expansion in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.