Viola Growth Raises Third, $280 Million FundIsrael-based venture capital fund Viola Growth, of the Viola Group, is raising a third fund. The fund has already closed commitments for most of its $280 million target, several people familiar with the matter told Calcalist on condition of anonymity. According to documents filed with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission in April, the fund has already raised at least $40 million in commitments. [ calcalistech ] Singapore's Ride-Hailing App Grab Mulls Becoming a Bank: ReutersLeading Southeast Asian ride-sharing provider Grab is considering applying for a digital banking license if Singapore’s banking regulator allows it, Reuters reported citing four people with knowledge of the process. Grab, which acquired Uber Technologies Inc.’s Southeast Asian business and now carries a valuation of $14 billion, is close to hiring a consultancy firm to advise it on the matter, Reuters said. A company representative declined to comment. [ Bloomberg ] Behind the scenes of Pathao’s growth to a 600-strong team in 3 yearsThis article is from an episode on Asia VC Cast, a podcast hosted by Daniel Song. This is heavily revised from the original show transcript. For the full interview, go here. Hussain Elius is the CEO and co-founder of Pathao, a Bangladesh-based company providing on-demand ride-sharing, logistics, and food delivery services. He started Pathao to address the notorious traffic condition in very dense Dhaka. With only five bikes then in 2015, Elius’ friends would call him for delivery services that were manually scheduled on an Excel sheet. Today, Pathao is considered a pioneer in the Bangladeshi startup scene, growing from a lean team of five people to over 600 and supporting 200,000 registered drivers as of 2019. [ Tech In Asia ] Banking Is Only The Beginning: 55 Big Industries Blockchain Could TransformBanking isn't the only industry that could be affected by blockchain tech. Law enforcement, ride-hailing, and many other sectors could also have blockchain in their future. What began as the basis of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain technology — essentially a virtual ledger capable of recording and verifying a high volume of digital transactions — is now spreading across a wave of industries. Blockchain tech has gone far beyond its beginnings in banking and cryptocurrency: In 2019, businesses are expected to spend $2.9B on the technology, up almost 90% from 2018, according to IDC. Industries from insurance to gaming to cannabis are starting to see blockchain applications. [ CB Insights ] Adjust raises $227M to measure mobile ads and prevent fraudAdjust is announcing that it has raised $227 million in new funding. The company, founded in Berlin back in 2012, has created a variety of ad measurement and anti-fraud tools — CEO Christian Henschel said the goal is to “make marketing simpler, smarter and safer.” Adjust says it’s now being used in more than 25,000 mobile apps for customers like NBCUniversal, Zynga, Robinhood, Pinterest and Procter & Gamble. [ Tech Crunch ] Salesforce makes big play for data analytics with $15.7B Tableau purchaseSalesforce has agreed to buy business data visualization company Tableau Software in an all-stock deal worth $15.7 billion dollars, as it seeks to stand on equal ground with SaaS rivals such as Oracle and Microsoft. It is the enterprise software maker's largest deal to date and ranks as one of the top 5 software deals, as well as the largest for an application software company, per the PitchBook platform. It comes just a week after Google announced its acquisition of Looker, another business intelligence software company, for $2.6 billion. [ Pitchbook ] E944: Investor & coach Jerry Colonna on new book, “Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up"-PT1E944: Jerry Colonna, legendary investor & executive coach, shares new book, “Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up," insights on absolute complicity in creating our own conditions & strategies we need to overcome self-imposed limitations in business & in life - Part 1 Chinese EV Start-Up SERES Hires Former Hummer CEOChina-based electric vehicle startup Seres just announced it will bring James Taylor onboard as CEO. Taylor’s previous experience includes high-ranking positions at two major GM brands, including President, General Manager and Chief Marketing Officer at Cadillac, and CEO at Hummer. In addition to his work at GM, Taylor was also the CEO at Workhorse Group, and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at the Chinese-owned Karma Automotive. We interviewed Taylor sever years ago about Hummer and all things GM. [ gmauthority ] Here’s Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends reportThe Internet Trends report — everyone’s favorite slide deck — is back. Bond Capital founder and former Kleiner Perkins general partner Mary Meeker made her presentation onstage at Vox/Recode’s Code Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. on Tuesday. Meeker first crafted a report of this kind, which underlines the most important statistics and technology trends on the internet, in 1995. This morning, Meeker highlighted slowed growth in e-commerce sales, increased internet ad spending, data growth, as well as the rise of freemium subscription business models, telemedicine, photo-sharing, interactive gaming, the on-demand economy and more. [ Tech Crunch ] Uber is making Melbourne part of its pioneering electric passenger drone programThe Victorian capital joins Dallas and Los Angeles as pilot cities for the program. Test flights are due to get underway from 2020 with the goal of commercial flights from 2023. Uber’s Australian, New Zealand and North Asian regional GM, Susan Anderson, revealed Melbourne was the tech company’s third site to develop the flying taxis at a summit for Uber Elevate in Washington DC today, saying the Victorian government had been “highly supportive” of the proposal. [ Startup Daily ] Chinese digital logistics platform YunQuNa secures $70m cash injectionDigital logistics platform YunQuNa has secured a new round of $70m financing from Sequoia Capital China, New York-based technology hedge fund Coatue and Beijing-based venture capital Source Code Capital. [ splash247 ] Dubai-Based Venture Capital Group To Tokenize Real Estate AssetsA Dubai-based venture capital firm ASA has partnered with blockchain investment company IBC Group Limited to hold a Malta-regulated STO. The collaboration plans to tokenize real estate assets in the UAE and Portugal. Real estate will soon be tokenized in the UAE and Portugal as per a new partnership. ASA, a Dubai-based venture capital firm will be partnering with the blockchain investment firm IBC Group Limited to make this vision a reality. An STO is planned to tokenize apartments, in one case a 200-apartment vacation rental portfolio. Currently, the complex is valued at around $100M. It is the first time ASA is involved in the security tokenspace. [ The Tokenist ] Bux raises additional $12.5M as it gears up to launch ‘zero-commission’ investing appBux, the Amsterdam-based trading app that wants to make investing fun, has picked up an additional $12.5 million in new funding. Venture capital firms Velocity Capital and Holtzbrinck Ventures led the round, which also includes debt financing from Kreos Capital. It brings total funding to $35 million since being founded over five years ago. [ Tech Crunch ] VW breaks with Amazon-funded autonomy startup for one backed by FordVolkswagen Group has ended a partnership with Aurora Innovation, the autonomy startup founded by former Google self-driving head Chris Urmson, as was first reported by the Financial Times. Aurora was supposed to provide Volkswagen with a full tech stack it calls the “Driver,” which would enable completely autonomous cars, not a driver assistance system (like what’s available on Audi’s cars). Volkswagen was one of Aurora’s first customers. The two companies announced the deal at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, though they had been working together for at least a year before that. The deal was supposed to end this June, according to two people familiar with the terms, and Volkswagen declined to sign a new one. [ The Verge ] SpotOn raises $40M, adding up to 50 hires in ChicagoIf you recently bought something from a local business, you may have SpotOnto thank for the transaction. The fintech company creates products for all things related to the merchant service industry. Its platform manages point-of-sale transactions, but it can also help businesses with everything from their websites, marketing, appointments, customer reviews and more. [ Built In Chicago ] Modern Fertility raises $15 million to sell its hormone tests — and gather more fertility data from its usersModern Fertility is a San Francisco-based company that sells fertility tests directly to consumers, but increasingly, those customers will be educating the company, too. Indeed, the two-year-old startup now plans to develop a database of anonymized data about its largely younger demographic. [ Tech Crunch ] Infographic: Google’s Biggest AcquisitionsAs Google announces its pending purchase of business intelligence platform Looker — its 4th-largest acquisition of all time — we visualize the tech giant's top acquisitions. Over 12 years ago, tech giant Google announced its largest acquisition since it incorporated in a Menlo Park garage, paying $1.7B for YouTube, a video platform that at the time had fewer than 100 employees. Since then, Google’s checkbook has opened wide (as we highlighted in our deep dive into Google’s M&A strategy), with nearly 250 acquisitions announced over the past decade. [ CB Insights ] Curated by Venture Pulse Team. Find us on : [ Venturepulse.org, CrunchBase, AngelList ] |