Tag: Asia
SoftBank, Uber, Tencent set to reap rewards from Didi IPO
After years of speculation, Didi Chuxing, China’s ride-sharing behemoth, finally unveiled its IPO filing in the U.S., giving a glimpse into its money-losing history. Didi didn’t disclose the size of its raise. Reuters reported the company could raise around $10 billion at a valuation of close to $100 billion. Cheng…
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Nexford University lands $10.8M pre-Series A to scale its flexible remote learning platform
Two profound problems face the higher education sector globally — affordability and relevance. Whether you live in Africa, Europe, or the U.S., a major reason why people don’t go to university or college or even drop out because they cannot afford tuition fees. On the other hand, relevance shows the…
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BukuWarung, a fintech for Indonesian MSMEs, scores $60M Series A led by Valar and Goodwater
BukuWarung, a fintech focused on Indonesia’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), announced today it has raised a $60 million Series A. The oversubscribed round was led by Valar Ventures, marking the firm’s first investment in Indonesia, and Goodwater Capital. The Jakarta-based startup claims this is the largest Series A…
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Wagely, an Indonesian earned wage access and financial services platform, raises $5.6M
Wagely founders (from l to r): Tobias Fischer, Sasanadi Ruka and Kevin Hausburg Earned wage access (EWA) platforms that allow workers to withdraw their earnings on demand instead of waiting until payday are proliferating around the world. Today, Indonesian EWA startup wagely announced it has raised $5.6 million in strategic…
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Chinese lidar maker Hesai lands $300M led by Hillhouse, Xiaomi, Meituan
The rush to back lidar companies continues as more automakers and robotaxi startups include the remote sensing method in their vehicles. Latest to the investment boom is Hesai, a Shanghai-based lidar maker founded in 2014 with an office in Palo Alto. The company just raised over $300 million in a…
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Apple’s new encrypted browsing feature won’t be available in China, Saudi Arabia and more: report
Apple announced a handful of privacy-focused updates at its annual software developer conference on Monday. One called Private Relay particularly piques the interest of Chinese users living under the country’s censorship system, for it encrypts all browsing history so nobody can track or intercept the data. As my colleague Roman…
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