Asia

Drivetrain AI, Inc., an India-based financial planning, monitoring and decision-making platform, announced Wednesday that it has raised $15 million in funding from Elevation Capital, Jungle Ventures, and Venture Highway.

Yat Siu, Animoca’s Co-Founder and Chairman, talked about why they are bullish on Web3 gaming and whether the play-to-earn gaming model is sustainable at the BEYOND Expo 2022 tech conference, held online at BEYOND Metaverse.

Wise, the global tech company building the best way to move money around the world, announced Wednesday it is bolstering its Asia ambitions, with the company on track to hit over 400 employees in Singapore by the end of 2022, doubling its team here since the start of the year.

Shopr.TV, an India-based live-commerce platform, announced that Tuesday it has raised $1.7 million seed capital from reputed global institutional investors, including BEENEXT, Y-Combinator, Locus Ventures, Shiprocket, Goodwater Capital, and more.

EVMOS StayKing House, a decentralized finance protocol developed by engineers from Sooho.io, the South Korea-based DeFi infrastructure service provider, won the Grand Champion award of $80,000 worth of USDC and EVMOS at Evmos’ inaugural Momentum Hackathon.

Asean saw a total of 96 IPOs raising $3.8 billion, up 4 percent in deal numbers and a decline of 57 percent in proceeds YOY. The notable decline in proceeds was due to a lack of mega IPOs (IPOs with proceeds equal to or greater than $1 billion) in YTD 2022.

As many regions around the world enter an adjustment period, startup founders and investors have to adjust to a slower fundraising pace. Still, some investors see the adjustment as a healthy thing since it produces more reasonable valuations, weeds out unproductive firms, and forces founders to focus on creating real value.

Endowus, the Singapore-based digital wealth advisory platform, announced Monday that it has completed its acquisition of a majority stake in Carret Private Investments Limited, a Hong Kong-based wealth manager and multi-family office that serves ultra-high-net-worth individuals, families, trusts and charitable organisations.

ImBee, a Hong Kong-headquartered chat management platform, announced Monday that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by DCM, a global venture capital firm, to advance its platform offerings, go deeper into existing markets and expand its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing US-China trade tensions, and an imminent global recession are already hitting technology firms in both China and the US, some investors see new opportunities emerging for today’s technology and startup markets.