tal, existing investors Sequoia India, Accel, Kae Capital, Udaan co-founder Vaibhav Gupta and OYO Chief Strategy Officer Maninder Gulati all participated in the round. At the same time, the company also raised debt of 1 billion Indian rupees ($ 14.1 million) from banks and financial institutions. Prior to this round, the company had raised $ 10.2 million.
Southeast Asia
“Second-owned Southeast Asian melon seed car” Carsome completes $ 50 million in Series C financing strong>. Going abroad learned that Carsome, a used car trading platform in Southeast Asia, announced that it has completed a $ 50 million Series C financing. Investors in this round of financing include MUFG Innovation Partners, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Co., Ltd., the private equity arm of Daiwa Securities Group, new ventures such as American venture capital institutions and Chinese investment institutions such as Living Water Capital. CEO Eric Cheng said that the funds will help the company further develop the three markets of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
E-commerce service provider Intrepid completes Series A financing. According to Tech in Asia, this round is led by Kairous Capital, a regional venture capitalist focused on cross-border investment between China and Southeast Asia. Sun SEA Capital and 500 Startups Vietnam co-invested. The amount of financing has not yet been disclosed. Intrepid helps brands optimize their businesses on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee, Tokopedia, Facebook, and Instagram, and provides companies with automation and digital marketing services. Currently, Intrepid has offices in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and will have offices in Thailand and Malaysia.
Latin America
Brazilian content marketing startup Rock Content announces its acquisition of US-based company ScribbleLive. According to an exclusive report by Forbes, the acquisition is part of Rock Content’s international expansion plan. The plan started in 2017, when Rock Content begins to enter the Mexican market. After the acquisition, Rock Rocket will have 500 employees and 80,000 freelance authors. ScribbleLive also brings in a customer base that includes Red Bull, Cisco, Dell, Reuters, Deloitte and American Express.
The Brazilian SaaS platform Hanzo has completed a Series A round of financing, led by New York boutique investment banks Dot Capital and Mastercard. According to Contxto, the exact amount of the round has not been disclosed, and the funds raised will be used to enter other countries’ markets. Hanzo was founded in 2004. The company provides marketing services such as push notifications, email marketing, surveys, discount coupons and sweepstakes. Since 2015, Hanzo and Mastercard have collaborated more closely. Recently, Hanzo helped develop the payment giant’s affiliate program for managing points for credit and debit card transactions. In addition, Hanzo also participated in Mastercard’s 2018 Global Acceleration Program.
Shared kitchen startup CloudKitchen will be available in Brazil in the first half of 2020. According to local feed Neofeed, LABS reported that the company first registered with the São Paulo Trade Commission in April under the name “Future Kitchen”. In November, the company’s capital was adjusted from 10,000 Brazilian reals (approximately $ 2,400) to 20 million Brazilian reals (approximately $ 4.8 million). The company raised $ 400 million from Saudi Arabia ’s sovereign wealth fund earlier this year and is using the money to buy several properties in the United States, China, the United Kingdom, India and Brazil. In 2015, Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick founded CloudKitchen.
Africa
MFS Africa and Visa will collaborate to provide electronic payment solutions for African consumers and businesses. We’ve heard that International Card Organization Visa and African fintech company MFS Africa have announced a partnership. MFS Africa and Visa will build a bridge between the African mobile currency platform and the global electronic payment network. Through cooperation with MFS Africa, Visa will strengthen its service capabilities in the African market and expand the countries and regions covered by Visa-related services in Africa.
Boomplay has reached a strategic cooperation with Merlin to add tens of millions of “independent music” music libraries. Learned that Bo, Africa ’s largest music streaming and download service platformomplay has reached a strategic cooperation with Merlin, an independent music digital rights agency, to increase the tens of millions of music libraries. As of November 2019, Boomplay has more than 62 million users, with a music library size of 10 million, and it is still growing rapidly. In the future, Boomplay will continue to expand the music copyright cooperation camp, introduce richer music content, and make continuous efforts to achieve the diversified development of African music.
Middle East
Hua Da Gene: Hua Da Group will participate in the Abu Dhabi National Genome Project. It was learned that BGI announced that the company received a notification from the controlling shareholder BGI Holdings that it was informed that on December 10, Abdullah Hamid, the director of the Health Bureau of the Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, announced the launch of the National Genome Project ” The goal of the Abu Dhabi Universal Genome Project is to build a universal healthcare system for the people of the UAE with predictable, preventable and personalized treatment using large-scale population genomic data. BGI and its subsidiaries will participate in the project and provide gene sequencing technology and platform services.
Others
Byte Beat launches new music app Resso in India and Indonesia. According to a quote from PinPlay, Bloomberg News, ByteDance launched new music app Resso in India and Indonesia. According to Sensor Tower data, Resso has been installed by about 27,000 users in the iOS App Store and Google Play since its launch six months ago. The promotion of the app has officially started at the end of November. Unlike Spotify, Resso displays real-time lyrics and allows users to comment on a single song. It can also generate gifs and videos of music accompaniment, and provides a monthly subscription service.
FintechOS raised $ 14 million in Series A financing. It is learnt that Romanian FintechOS has received US $ 14 million in Series A financing, led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Digital East Fund, OTB Ventures and existing investors Gapminder Ventures and Launchub. The financing will be used for FintechOS ‘business growth in Europe and to expand the market to Southeast Asia and the United States. Fintech was founded in 2017 and currently has customers in more than 20 countries.
文 | 郭 沈 @ 出海 ； 云 晞 @ 出海
Edit | 赵小 纯 @ 出海
Picture | Photo by Carsome