And Bezos promises to create 1 million jobs in India over the next five years; Paytm plans to expand its online lending business.
India
India IT consulting and IT service management company Wipro completed fundraising for its second fund, raising a total of US $ 150 million. According to ET Tech, Wipro Ventures, a strategic investment arm of Wipro, said on Thursday that it has completed its second fundraising and raised a total of $ 150 million. It is reported that Wipro Ventures will continue to focus on investing in early to mid-term companies. The invested company will build enterprise software solutions in the fields of network security, application development, analysis, cloud infrastructure, test automation and artificial intelligence.
Venture Highway, an early-stage Indian venture capital firm, raised $ 78.6 million for its second early-stage fund. According to Inc42, Venture Highway revealed that the investor who injected capital into the fund came from Silicon Valley. It is reported that Venture Highway will invest in nearly 30 early-stage companies, each with an investment amount of about $ 1 million.
Xiaomi: Overseas sub-brand POCO is upgraded to an independent brand. Manu Kumar Jain, global vice president of Xiaomi and head of Xiaomi’s Indian business, announced that the overseas subsidiary of Xiaomi Group, POCO, has become an independent brand, and wishes POCO all the best in the future. It is understood that POCO is a sub-brand launched by Xiaomi in India. In 2018, its first product, POCOF1, was launched in New Delhi, India, focusing on cost-effectiveness, and is mainly sold in India, Hong Kong, South Korea and other Asian countries. (Sina Finance)
Bezos announced another $ 1 billion investment in India. Minister of India: No benefit to India. According to foreign media reports, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a new $ 1 billion investment plan during his visit to India to help digitalize SMEs in India. But India ’s trade minister said Thursday that Amazon ’s new investment has not brought any benefit to India. More and more Indian physical retailers have accused Amazon and Wal-Mart ’s Flipkart and other U.S. industry giants of violating Indian laws, using capital advantages to fight price wars, causing billions of dollars in losses to local merchants and discriminating against small businesses. Both companies have denied the allegations.
Bezos is committed to creating 1 million jobs in India over the next 5 years. Amazon founder and CEO Bezos promised Friday that it will create 1 million jobs in India in the next 5 yearsYes, two days ago, he promised to invest 1 billion US dollars to help Indian SMEs realize digitalization, and expected to export 10 billion US dollars worth of Indian-made goods by 2025. Amazon said on Friday that it will create new jobs in India through investments in infrastructure, technology and logistics. (Sina Finance)
Paytm plans to expand its online lending business. According to ET Tech, Paytm hopes that its online lending business will be a major source of revenue and plans to expand the business to various regions in India. Paytm recently launched All-in-One QR for merchants across India. It is reported that this OR code allows merchants to receive payments via Paytm Wallet, its debit card Rupay card, and UPI-based payment apps without any fees.
Southeast Asia
Central Retail Thailand cut its target IPO price to the lower limit of the initial range. According to DealStreetAsia, the company has confirmed that it will lower the price range of its IPO to 40 to 43 baht per share. Central Retail’s IPO will begin on January 29. The company will issue 1.69 billion shares and place 169 million shares.
Temasek and Zhixin Capital seek to obtain a majority stake in WeWork China. According to Reuters, three people familiar with the matter reported that Temasek and Zhixin Capital held talks with WeWork China on increasing their stake and acquiring a majority stake in the latter. Two of them said the plan valued WeWork China at about $ 1 billion. One said that the proposal was submitted to WeWork’s major shareholder SoftBank at the end of last year. WeWork owns 59% of WeWork China’s shares, and the remaining shares are held by SoftBank, Hony Capital and Zhixin Capital. Negotiations are still in their early stages, and deals may not be reached.
Middle East
Beirut-based music streaming Anghami has confirmed that it is preparing for the next round of financing and will consider multiple acquisition intents. According to menabytes, Anghami is considering different options, including the possible sale of the company to Dubai-based Orbit Showtime Network (OSN), and the transaction could be worth as much as $ 400 million. It is reported that Anghami was founded in 2011 and has so farIt has raised more than $ 40 million in funding.
Latin America
Bolivian fintech company Blink turns taxis into “ATMs.” According to Contxto, Blink, a Bolivian fintech company born out of marketing company Ogilvy, has developed a program called “Mobile ATM (Mobile ATM)” that aims to turn “taxi drivers” into ” ATMs. ” It is reported that the drivers bound to this program also shared their course of action and carried a certain amount of cash in the car. Users who need money can use the program to contact taxi drivers and withdraw money from them. After completing the cash delivery, the driver can withdraw the money from the ATM bound to the user’s bank card through the code automatically generated by the program, and can charge a small commission for this service.
Others
Israel’s non-service performance monitoring startup “Essagon” has raised $ 16 million in Series A funding. It is learnt that Israeli non-service performance monitoring startup “Essagon” announced that it has completed a $ 16 million Series A financing. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners and StageOne Ventures. Epsagon hopes to use the new funding to support Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform to further expand its product range.
Bose will close all 119 retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. Bose announced on Wednesday local time that it will close all 119 of its 119 retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia in the coming months, as consumers increasingly prefer online shopping. Closing the store will result in hundreds of employees being fired. Bose states that new employment assistance and severance payments are being provided to dismissed employees. A total of 130 Bose retail stores in other parts of the world, including China, India, South Korea, the UAE, and others will continue to operate. (Pingwan)
文 | 杜俊 @ 出海
Edit | 赵小 纯 @ 出海
Picture | Pexels