Asia

ComfortDelGro Taxi and Alipay+ announced Wednesday a partnership that enables mobile payments from Malaysia and South Korea, namely the Touch ‘n Go eWallet and Kakao Pay, to be accepted as cashless payment options in all its Comfort and CityCab taxis. Users of these mobile wallets can pay for the cab fare simply through the wallet apps without the need to…

YAS MicroInsurance (YAS), a Hong Kong-based insurance on blockchain frontier, said Thursday it is joining forces with Amodo, a Croatia-based telematics insurtech company, to deliver autonomous insurance on-chain. This collaboration symbolises the new age of insurance against the backdrop of smart cities.

Australian drone firm Swoop Aero said Tuesday it has completed a $16 million Series B venture capital raise, following over two years of continuous drone delivery of medical supplies across Africa, and delivering over 800,000 items by drone. The successful Series B raise was led by Australia’s premier deep tech venture capital (VC) fund, Main Sequence.

Go1, an Australia-based corporate education content hub for on-demand training and resources, announced Monday it has raised over $100 million in its latest funding round closed in May. The round brings Go1’s total funding to over $400 million, increasing the company's valuation to over $2 billion. Participants in the round include AirTree Ventures, Blue…

In line with its commitment to talent development in the gaming industry, Tencent Cloud – the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, announced on Monday its signing of a four-party Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Megazone Cloud, Korea Mobile Game Association (KMGA) and Yeonsung University. The agreement aims to nurture cloud-based…

FTX Trading Ltd.(FTX), a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced Thursday that it has launched FTX Japan to service Japanese customers. FTX Japan, operating via FTX Japan K.K. (FTX Japan), is a licensed Japanese crypto-asset exchange services provider and Type 1 Financial Instruments Business license holder.

Simon-Kucher said Thursday that it estimates there are currently close to 400 neobanks around the world, together serving nearly one billion client accounts. However, despite their lofty valuations, it found that only five percent of these challenger banks have managed to reach a breakeven point.

Gupshup, an India-based conversational engagement firm, announced Thursday the acquisition of OneDirect, the omnichannel, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled customer service platform of choice for brands in India, South East Asia and the Middle East. The acquisition strengthens Gupshup’s suite of conversational solutions and enables superior omnichannel…

Binance Labs, the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance, announced Wednesday the closing of a new $500 million investment fund with support from leading global institutional investors such as DST Global Partners, and Breyer Capital. Other major private equity funds, family offices, and corporations also subscribed to the fund as limited partners.…

500 Global, a United States-based venture capital firm and Taiwan Tech Arena, a deep tech startup ecosystem-building program, have renewed their partnership to bring back 500 Global Accelerator Taiwan, with TTA (the Program). The accelerator Program aims to help 20 promising tech startups scale both locally and globally.