Grab’s fintech arm lands $300m Series A

Grab, the Singapore-based ride sharing turned “super app”, has landed a $300 million Series A funding round for its fintech arm.

Led by Hanwha Asset Management – one of South Korea’s Big Three – the round also saw participation from early Grab backers K3 Ventures and GGV Capital. Flourish Ventures, the venture capital firm funded by eBay’s founder Pierre Omidyar, and Arbor Ventures, also participated in the round.

It says it will use the funding to keep serving Singapore’s unbanked population. Southeast Asia as a whole houses an unbanked population of around 290 million, according to US credit agency Fitch Ratings.

Grab launched its first micro-investment service last August

The fintech arm, called Grab Financial Group, saw its total revenues jump up by more than 40% in 2020, compared to 2019.

Just last month, Grab and its partner – major Asian telco Singtel – became just one set of two … Read the rest

FTSE 100 has worst week since October as fears rise over Covid fallout

Increased lockdown measures in Germany, France and China dent prospects for rapid recovery in 2021

The FTSE 100 has recorded its worst week since late October as concerns increased about the economic fallout from tougher lockdown measures around the world.

The index of leading UK company shares ended the week down by 138 points compared with the previous week, a fall of about 2%, at 6,735, after official figures showed the British economy edged closer to a double-dip recession in November. After a strong start to the year, gaining by about 6% since the start of January, the performance was the worst weekly decline for the FTSE 100 since the last week of October as England headed for a second national lockdown.

Continue reading…

Source link … Read the rest

Sacramento Biz Journal hires Geraldo as a data reporter

The Sacramento Business Journal has hired Renata Geraldo as a data reporter. She starts next week. Gerado was a reporter with the Wall Street Journal corporate team as part of the fall 2020 newsroom...

The post Sacramento Biz Journal hires Geraldo as a data reporter appeared first on Talking Biz News.

Source link … Read the rest

CoinSwitch Kuber’s $15m Series A marks Ribbit Capital’s first Indian crypto deal

Ribbit Capital, the Palo Alto-based backer of Revolut, Robinhood and Affirm, has led its first Indian cryptocurrency deal.

CoinSwitch Kuber, one of India’s crypto investing platforms, landed a $15 million Series A led by Ribbit Capital. The investor also backs non-crypto Indian firms such as CRED, Razorpay, and Zest.

CoinSwitch Kuber’s co-founders Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Ashish Singhal, and Govind Soni

San Francisco-based Paradigm co-led the round alongside Ribbit Capital. Founded by Coinbase’s co-creator, Fred Ehrsam, and Matt Huang, a former Sequoia partner, Paradigm is a crypto-focused investor.

The two backers are investing in CoinSwitch Kuber ahead of a year which sees the start-up gun for a user base of ten million.

The fintech, founded in 2017, says it will put the new capital towards its technology, security, compliance and new product capabilities.

Existing investors participating in the round include Sequoia Capital India. As well as angel investor, Kunal Shah, who … Read the rest