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Hello readers,
Despite the global pandemic, Chinese and Indian companies are still attracting the big bucks from investors. They’re the top two markets benefiting from fundraising, receiving 60% and 17%, respectively, of the US$11 billion that was pumped into Asia in June, as our latest visual story illustrates (🔒).
Scroll down for more details and to see who got the largest slice of this expensive pie.
But first, your quick bytes for today:
1️⃣ Skype co-founder Toivo Annus has passed away at the age of 48 due to an “unexpected illness.” Annus was known for his work at Skype, where he had led the engineering team until ecommerce major eBay acquired the company in late 2005. He then moved on to focus on his investment firm Ambient Sound Investments where he invested in numerous Asian startups, including Coda Payments and Sea Group.
2️⃣ Google injects $4.5 billion into Jio Platforms for a 7.7% stake in Jio.
3️⃣ With TikTok now banned in India, local alternative Roposo is rising to fill the gap left behind: Its user acquisition rate is peaking at 500,000 new users an hour and it expects to hit 100 million total users by the end of July.
4️⃣ No shortage of Playstation 5 units or Oculus VR headsets to worry about as Sony and Facebook ramp up production of their respective gaming devices to meet pandemic-driven demand.
5️⃣ Recovery looks to be on the cards for Airbnb, which recorded more than one million bookings globally on July 8 – the first time it has happened since March 3.
6️⃣ A new filing by Alibaba reveals that Ant Group’s consumer finance app Alipay claims to have 1.3 billion annual active users as of March. Ant has been actively publicizing itself as a technology company that offers payment gateways and sells digital infrastructure to financial institutions – rather than be a direct competitor to them.
Asian fundraising not slowing down
Who were the most active investors in Asia for the month of June 2020 and what countries and verticals were they betting on? In the article, you can click on each category to zoom in.
Who were the most active investors in Asia for the month of June 2020 and what countries and verticals were they betting on? In the article, you can click on each category to zoom in.
So we’re in the middle of a global pandemic that’s bringing about recessions and belt-tightening measures across the board.
Mo’ money, fewer problems
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