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Snapdeal board accepts $900m-$950m revised buyout offer from Flipkart: report
Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl. Photo credit: Snapdeal. Indian ecommerce company Snapdeal has accepted a revised offer of US$900 million to US$950 million for a takeover by its arch rival...
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Grab and Didi combined are now likely worth as much as Uber
Photo credit: Jonathan Kos-Read. Uber still holds the title as the world’s most valuable private tech company, but competitors are catching up. Uber’s rivals in China and Southeast Asia already nearly...
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FreeCharge sold for $60m, a big drop from the $400m Snapdeal paid for it: report
FreeCharge founder Kunal Shah, looking pleased as punch after the acquisition by Snapdeal in 2015. Photo credit: Tech in Asia. Indian ecommerce company Snapdeal, which has accepted a buyout offer of...
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Brief: WeWork opens China subsidiary with $500m funding
Inside WeWork’s new space in Hong Kong’s Tower 535. Photo credit: WeWork. The news: Co-working maven WeWork is taking China very seriously. In addition to the nine spaces it has already opened in...
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Dissecting Snapdeal 2.0: Can it succeed where Ebay failed?
Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl. Photo credit: Snapdeal. Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal – co-founders of Indian ecommerce company Snapdeal – went from zeroes to heroes overnight this week in some...
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SoftBank in talks to invest in Flipkart, Masayoshi Son confirms
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son at SoftBank World 2016. Photo credit: @SoftBank. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has confirmed that the Japanese giant is now in talks with Flipkart to invest in the Indian...
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Clash of the Titans: SoftBank invests $2.5b in Flipkart to stop Amazon
SoftBank has just announced its biggest investment in India: a whopping US$2.5 billion in Indian ecommerce company Flipkart. With this latest funding round, Flipkart boasts of over US$4 billion in...
View ArticleVideo: This robot is now a Buddhist monk
Pepper, a friendly humanoid robot designed for use in stores, is now also a Buddhist monk presiding over funerals. This is in Japan, of course. Source: Japan Times This post Video: This robot is now a...
View ArticleVideo: Here’s what you need to know about Masayoshi Son, Japan’s most...
The eccentric billionaire Masayoshi Son presides over his US$88 billion Softbank empire. Here’s what you need to know about Japan’s visionary techie. This post Video: Here’s what you need to know about...
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SoftBank and Line further AI ambitions by joining this startup’s $33m series C
Appier’s team in Taipei. Photo credit: Appier. Artificial intelligence startup Appier today revealed that it has secured US$33 million in series C funding from investors such as SoftBank, Line, and...
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SoftBank leads $250m funding of Oyo to fight rivals in budget hotels with...
Oyo founder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal. Photo credit: Oyo. Japanese giant SoftBank is keeping its faith in India’s budget accommodation provider Oyo, despite its mounting losses and growing competition....
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Softbank buys into Chinese online insurer ahead of $11b IPO
Masayoshi Son at SoftBank World 2016. Photo credit: SoftBank. Online insurer ZhongAn, one of China’s leading fintech services, today got a big vote of confidence ahead of a much-anticipated IPO....
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Didi, WeWork, and possibly Uber? SoftBank’s top 10 deals this year
Up until about June last year, it had been Masayoshi Son’s plan to retire as SoftBank’s CEO when he turned 60 – which would have been last month. But in June 2016, everything changed. SoftBank’s...
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How Japan turbocharges tech across Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia’s homegrown ride-hailing app has taken in a lot of Japanese cash. Photo credit: Grab. When you think of Asia’s tech industry, you’re likely envisioning that it’s fuelled largely by...
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Brief: SoftBank, Tencent invest $2 billion in India’s Uber rival Ola
Photo credit: Tech in Asia. The news (extracted from Bloomberg): India’s ride-hailing company Ola has raised US$2 billion in fresh funding from SoftBank, Tencent, UC-RNT Fund, a venture capital fund...
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In India, Ola escalates Uber war with $2b funding
Photo credit: Michael Coghlan. Ola, India’s homegrown challenger to Uber, has pocketed US$1.1 billion in funding, it announced this afternoon. There’s more in the works, taking the total fresh input...
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Brief: SoftBank raising another gigantic fund, even before closing the $100b one
Illustration by Tech in Asia, from photo by Softbank. The news (extracted from Recode): SoftBank is in talks to raise another massive fund, probably bigger than its US$100 billion Vision Fund, Recode...
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Google’s parent Alphabet pumps US$1b into Lyft even as Uber woos SoftBank
David Lawee of CapitalG (center) flanked by Lyft co-founders David Green (left) and John Zimmer. Photo credit: Lyft. CapitalG, the investment arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has led a US$1...
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Uber and the ride-hail funding war
Uber is on the verge of its biggest ever funding round after approving SoftBank’s bid to buy a sizeable stake. The deal looks set to allow Softbank and an array of other investors to buy a US$10...
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What SoftBank’s $10b investment in Uber means for its battle with Ola in India
Photo credit: Ola. Scandal-ridden Uber has confirmed a deal to sell a chunk of its stakes to SoftBank. The Japanese giant could invest US$10 billion over the next month to acquire 14 percent or more of...
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Uber board finally agrees to terms of $10b deal with SoftBank, but conditions...
Illustration by Tech in Asia, from photo by Softbank. Uber’s warring board members have finally agreed to terms for an investment by SoftBank that could be worth US$10 billion. But the Japanese giant...
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SoftBank’s $10b investment in Uber could end the war with Grab in Southeast Asia
Grab CEO Anthony Tan (L) and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Image credit: Grab, Uber, Tech in Asia. As Uber’s board gives the green light to what could be a US$10 billion investment deal with SoftBank,...
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Didi’s next trick is to go global
Jean Liu is president of the ride-hailing startup. Photo credit: Didi Chuxing. Brazil is Uber’s third-largest market, with 17 million regular riders. And Sao Paulo is Uber’s biggest city on the planet...
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India’s top tech investments in 2017 came from the east
Mega-rounds of funding were back in India this year, after a lull in 2016. But this time they came from the east. SoftBank honcho Masayoshi Son remains hugely bullish on India despite setbacks in a...
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Asia tech news roundup – Dec 29
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Photo credit: Uber Softbank succeeds in tender offer for Uber shares, Huawei sees slower growth, and China wants to shut down online games with inappropriate content....
View ArticleHow billionaire Masayoshi Son thinks his way to success
Want to build the next Softbank? Try thinking the way its founder Masayoshi Son thinks with this secret, pyramid-shaped mental framework he’s been using for 30 years. This post How billionaire...
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Opinion: Winners and losers in the mega Grab-Uber deal
Grab CEO Anthony Tan (L) and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi / Photo credit: Grab, Uber, Tech in Asia The business world is reeling from Grab’s purchase of Uber’s Southeast Asian business. The stakes are...
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With $60m fresh funding in the tank, Carro aims to be the region’s top auto...
The Carro team / Photo credit: Carro Money is pouring into Southeast Asia’s used-car market. Startups using tech to make second-hand vehicle sales more efficient have secured big funding in recent...
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Brief: Didi starts Japan taxi service as SoftBank’s Son slams the country’s...
Photo credit: SoftBank SoftBank CEO lambasts Japan’s ride-sharing ban (Japan). At the company’s annual event for customers and suppliers, CEO Masayoshi Son called Japan “stupid” for banning...
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Brief: SoftBank plans $1b SenseTime investment; Xiaomi issues crypto rewards
Photo credit: Pixabay SoftBank in talks to invest over US$1 billion in SenseTime (China). SoftBank’s Vision Fund is said to be looking to plow capital into the four-year old startup. SenseTime – which...
View ArticleIn brief: Paytm comes to Japan, Bilibili removed from app stores
A roundup of the latest news from around the region.
View ArticleIn brief: Amazon leads $11m investment in bus-sharing app Shuttl
A roundup of the latest news from around the region.
View ArticleIn brief: Didi’s unit nets $1b; Google “in talks” to bring its cloud services...
A roundup of the latest news from around the region.
View ArticleIn brief: SoftBank bets $1b on WeWork; Tencent pulls blockbuster game amid...
A roundup of the latest news from around the region.
View ArticleVietnamese C2C portal Sendo nets $51m from SoftBank, SBI, and others
It will use the funding to launch a B2C platform and expand its digital payments services.
View ArticleIn brief: Toutiao’s two-year-old rival eyes US trading debut
A roundup of the latest news from around the region.
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