HungryGoWhere’s demise shines spotlight on restaurant reservation industry trying to adapt to stay afloat; The homegrown F&B portal is ceasing operations on July 11; The popular site offers restaurant reservations, dining deals, dining rewards, and articles on food and drinks in Singapore; HungryGoWhere’s competitor Eatigo said in an interview that the industry is not in a great shape.
MatchMove receives US$100M from US firm to scale its embedded finance services; Together, the two companies aim to empower clients to embed own-brand digital financial services in their own platforms and apps; These fintech-powered platforms will enable MNCs, SMEs, families, and individuals to “instantly” access intuitive digital banking products.
Intrepid Group attracts US$11M Series B; Investors include Mirabaud Lifestyle Impact & Innovation fund (leaad), Vulpes Investment, and Thakral Corporation; Founded by co-founders of Lazada, Intrepid offers both enterprise-grade SaaS and end-to-end e-commerce management to brands and SMEs to accelerate their growth on platforms such as Lazada and Shopee.
BRI Agro to raise capital for digital bank spinoff, enter supply chain financing; The move will allow BRI Agro, a subsidiary of BRI Indonesia, to build a large ecosystem of merchants, consumers and biz partners and facilitate loans for their everyday banking needs.
B Capital’s SPAC trims US IPO target to US$200M from US$300M; The SPAC, B Capital Opportunities, will focus on acquiring tech businesses with the capacity to transform large and traditional industries; This will cover consumer enablement, financial services, health and wellness, and industrial and transportation.
These e27 Luminaries are taking the Indonesian startup scene to greater heights; Far from being a one-hit-wonder, Indonesia almost dominated the e27 Luminaries list with a total of 14 startups; This proves that the local startup ecosystem is filled with players that are resilient enough to face the challenges of a pandemic.
Osome raises US$16M Series A from Target Global, AltaIR Capital, Phystech Ventures, and S16VC; An accounting and corporate compliance app, Osome plans to dive deeper in the e-commerce industry; Osome leverages AI and ML techniques, combined with the experience of human experts, to solve the problem of time-consuming administrative tasks, such as payroll and secretarial work.
Alibaba Cloud invests US$1B to nurture APAC digital talent pool; Project AsiaForward aims to cultivate a million-strong digital talent pool, empower 100K developers and the growth of 100K technology startups in over the next three years; The project forms part of its strategy to invest in infra, tech innovation and talent development to contribute to local economic growth through digital transformation in APAC.
Singapore’s GIC invests US$70M in digital asset firm BC Group; BC Group is a digital asset and fintech company as well as the parent company of OSL; It intends to develop and enhance the platform technology of its digital asset business; In the future, it plans to expand to markets including UK, Singapore and America.
This Japanese biz has set its sights on Malaysia’s market potential for digital gifts; giftee Inc has set up a subsidiary Giftee Malaysia and has partnered with 16 well-loved F&B brands in the country; Currently, Giftee Malaysia has launched 2 out of their 4 available solutions in Japan: eGift System (eGift), and giftee for Business.
‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ – 5 key convenient payment players in Asia; Some pure players operating in the market include Akulaku (Indonesia), hoolah, and Atome (Singapore); The uptake of the payment type across APAC has been fuelled by Gen Z and millennial shoppers.
—
Image Credit:
The post Ecosystem Roundup: What does HungryGoWhere’s demise tell us? appeared first on e27.