Asia

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Animoca Brands are launching a $200 million investment program to accelerate and incubate early crypto gaming startups that are building on BSC.

PeopleFund will utilize the funds to hire artificial intelligence (AI) engineers and acquire alternative data to further upgrade its credit-scoring algorithm while focusing on credit scoring technology with the acquisition of MyData license set for late this year.

Space BD has raised a total of 1.04 billion JPY ($9.2 million) through a third-party allotment of new shares to the existing shareholders Incubate Fund, Anniversaire Holdings, SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, and the new shareholder Pavilion Capital, wholly owned by Temasek Holdings, a Singapore government-affiliated investment company.

Simpl, has raised a $40 million Series B round led by Valar Ventures and IA Ventures with participation from LFH Ventures and other internal investors. The investment brings the total capital raised by the company to $83 million.

Prenetics, which is expected to go public on the Nasdaq in the first quarter of next year, is also actively looking for local partners in Southeast Asia.

LinkBy has raised $1.54 million in an oversubscribed Series Pre-A funding round. Led by global venture capital firm Hive Ventures, the round also saw participation from 18 other investors including institutional/corporate investors such as Artesian Capital and Animoca Brands.

Zoomcar, which dominates the self-drive car rental market in India, has expanded to Southeast Asia. This broader geographic expansion is in line with Zoomcar’s ultimate mission to democratize car access across the world’s largest, most populated, and fastest-growing emerging markets.

Slice has raised $220 million in a Series B round that values the company at over $1 billion.The round was led by investors Tiger Global and Insight Partners. New and existing investors including Advent International’s Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa, Gunosy, Blume Ventures, and 8i also participated in the round.

Indifi Technologies has raised a total of Rs 340 crores ($46) million in Series D equity and debt funding. CX Partners and OP Finnfund Global Impact Fund I (the first Finnish global emerging markets impact fund) along with existing investors CDC Group (the UK’s development finance institution), Omidyar Network, Flourish Ventures, Elevar Equity and Accel,…

simPRO has secured an investment of over $350 million from K1 Investment Management, with participation from existing investor Level Equity. It also announced the acquisitions of ClockShark and AroFlo. In addition to supporting the recent acquisitions, the funding will be used to accelerate product investment and scale global operations across the business.