In its funding announcement, Grab Financial Group mentioned its whole revenues grew greater than 40% in 2020, compared to 2019. This was pushed by robust shopper adoption of companies like AutoInvest, an funding platform that enables users to invest small quantities of money at a time by way of the Grab app and insurance products. Grab Financial announced the launch of a number of monetary merchandise for shoppers and SMEs in August 2020. “We are at an inflection level in southeast Asia, because the pandemic has accelerated the need for digital monetary services that assist us develop and protect our incomes,” stated Reuben Lai, senior managing director, at Grab.
Seven Bank notably owns all 7-Eleven stores in Japan – and ~69,200 comfort shops globally. According to credit standing company Moody’s, this is partly due to the company’s determination to continue spending in its financial services venture. Meanwhile, Gojek revealed that its gross transaction worth increased by 10 percent in 2020, however it suffered a $17 million impairment loss over Pathao funding. After calling off its bid to purchase the information aggregator Plaid, Visa is shifting its focus back to its position as an enabler of digital payments and associated companies. It will do this by further investing in cleverness and expanding its offerings in SEA with more convenient financial solutions.
○ Recruitment automation platform GrabJobs has partnered with POS system supplier Moka. ○ Coding bootcamp school Hacktiv8 has raised a US$3m pre-A round led by East Ventures, with participation from Sovereign’s Capital, SMDV, Skystar Capital, Convergence Ventures, RMKB Ventures, Prasetia, and Everhaus. ○ P2P lending platform Akseleran has raised a US$8.6m Series A led by BeeNext, with Access Ventures, Agaeti Venture Capital, Ahabe Group, and Central Capital Ventura also engineer builds bicycle time joining the round. ○ Deeptech startup Allegro Aqua has been acquired by fish farming group Barramundi Asia. ○ Caregiving startup Homage has raised its Series B – reportedly US$10m – led by EV Growth, with Alternate Ventures and KDV Capital additionally becoming a member of.
○ MAS-regulated blockchain capital markets firm iSTOX has obtained US$5m in financing from Hanwha Asset Management. During your trial you’ll have complete digital entry to FT.com with every thing in each of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. Grab, which is backed by Softbank, has developed rapidly since its inception as a taxi-booking app. It stays to be seen whether or not Grab holds on to its FinTech arm if it manages to shut the deal for a merger with Gojek. Interestingly, there are stories that Gojek is already in superior discussions for a merger with Tokopedia, an Indonesian firm that makes a speciality of e-commerce. Grab Financial Group’s seemingly discreet fundraising seems to be piquing curiosities over the potential merger between Grab Holdings and its Indonesian competitor Gojek.
○ Thank u, next – Tesla has partnered with Baidu for its in-car maps and traffic information, ditching Tencent – though Tencent is a shareholder of Tesla. Tesla has additionally announced it will set up a analysis and design center in China, to make ‘Chinese style’ autos. The government has suspended subsidy cuts to EVs, which had been deliberate to for this year. ○ TikTok and its Chinese model Douyin overtook Facebook and Messenger to become the world’s second most downloaded app – behind Whatsapp – topping 740m downloads in 2019, and generated US$177m from advertisers and in-app sales in 2019, 5x YoY. Video web sites have overtaken information web sites in gross promoting revenues in China, with 12.5% of the market share after ecommerce and search engine websites.
