Philippines

In the interview, Fong also shared some of his opinions on issues related to the digitization within the F&B industry post-pandemic.

Sprout Solutions, a human resource (HR) solutions provider in the Philippines, has acquired process automation platform Linnia from Aiah (Innovantage), a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and process automation company in the Philippines.

CloudEats, a Phiilippine-based cloud restaurant company, has raised $7 million in a fresh funding round led by Nordstar, a London-based venture firm.

Shipmates, Philippine-based shipping platform backed by Y Combinator and Iterative, announced Thursday that it had raised $2.2 million in a seed funding round. The seed round was participated by Cathexis Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, Taurus Ventures, Capital X, Sketchnote Partners and other prominent investors.

Malaysian private equity firm Creador has led a pre-Series A round of $11 million for UnoAsia, operator of Uno Digital Bank, one of only six licensed digital banks in the Philippines.UnoAsia had already raised $33.5 million in pre-seed and seed funding, of which $21 million came from Creador.

Edamama, the Philippines’ leading parenting-focused e-commerce platform, has secured a $20 million Series A funding round led by Alpha JWC Ventures. The round was also participated by its existing investors including Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI), and Kickstart Ventures.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines Central Bank, said Friday it has approved a modified approach which involved the closure of the regular application window for new VASP licenses for a period of three years and grant of new VASP licenses only to existing BSP supervised financial institutions (BSFIs).

Grab Philippines has announced that it has acquired motorcycle taxi firm MOVE IT’s business operations. Backed by Grab and MOVE IT’s shared commitment towards safe and reliable mobility services for everyday Filipino commuters, Grab Philippines will help MOVE IT further scale its existing motorcycle taxi fleet and improve the efficiency of its platform.

GoTyme Bank was awarded its Certificate of Authority (COA) to operate as a digital bank by the Bangko Sentralng Pilipinas (BSP) last Friday. The issuance of a COA is the third and final stage involved in establishing a digital bank in the country.

To date, UNOAsia has secured $44.5 million in investment in its pre-seed, seed, and pre-Series A rounds, which includes drawn-down capital of $34 million.