Didi and Softbank are investing $2 billion in ride-hail company Grab. Grab’s valuation nears $6 billion.China-based ride-hail player Didi Chuxing and Softbank are investing a combined $2 billion in Grab, the dominant ride-hail startup in South East Asia. The startup also expects to raise an additional $500 million from other investors as part of this round. Provided it closes the additional sum, the company’s valuation would top $6 billion, according to a source familiar with Grab’s fundraising. [ Recode ] A few years ago, when I started working on newsletters, most people thought email was dead. Social media, it seemed, was THE way to reach people. But today, thanks in large part to the unknowable ways of algorithms–which have made it nearly impossible to definitively figure out how to reach your followers on social media platforms–the reliability of email as a form of communication has put the newsletter back in the spotlight. Today, newsletters are flooding inboxes. The question isn’t whether or not you should start an email newsletter; it’s how can you create a newsletter people will actually want to open? [ Fast Company ] Uber competitor Grab has raised $2.5 billion from Asian tech giantsGrab, a taxi-hailing service operating in South East Asia,announced on Mondaythat it has raised $2 billion (£1.5 billion) from Japanese tech investor Softbank and its Chinese equivalent, Didi Chuxing. It expects to raise a further $500 million (£385 million) from other investors before the funding round is closed, bringing the total investment for the round to $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion). Grab claims the investment would be the largest ever to be made into a technology startup in Southeast Asia. [ Business Insider ] Venator Launches IPOVenator Materials PLC ("Venator"), a global chemical company dedicated to the development and manufacture of titanium dioxide ("TiO2") pigments and performance additives, today launched its initial public offering ("IPO") of its ordinary shares, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August under the ticker symbol "VNTR," subject to official notice of issuance. The initial public offering consists of 22,700,000 of its ordinary shares at an anticipated initial offering price between $20 and $22 per share, pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-1 (the "Registration Statement") filed previously with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). [ PR Newswire ] VCs love insurance, even if you don’tMost people hate shopping for insurance, and they don’t enjoy talking about it either. That’s probably why you’re unlikely to hear about the industry’s current transformation in conversation, even in startup circles. But make no mistake, there are vast sums of venture dollars going into insurance deals. Investment has risen dramatically, with VCs betting that, in the coming years, we’ll see major shifts in both how we buy insurance and what types of items we insure with it. [ Tech Crunch ] Making Music and Art Through Machine Learning - Doug Eck of MagentaU.S. venture capital's digital coin quandary: cash-rich startupsU.S. venture capital firms lining up for a slice of the burgeoning digital currency market are grappling with a novel challenge - some of the hottest tech startups that sell the coins just don't need their money. Only a few years ago, digital currency entrepreneurs, like other Silicon Valley peers, had to line up to pitch their ideas to venture capitalists, who controlled their destiny as virtually the only source of funding. [ Reuters ] Singapore Startup Takes Bitcoin Into Real World With VisaA recurring challenge for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is how to make them work in the real world. A Singapore-based startup says the answer is its Visa card. TenX is pitching its debit card as an instant converter of multiple digital currencies into fiat money: the dollars, yen and euros that power most everyday commerce. The company said it takes a 2 percent cut from each transaction and has received orders for more than 10,000 cards. While transactions are capped at $2,000 a year, users can apply to increase the limit if they undergo identify verification procedures. [ Bloomberg ] E748: LAUNCH Angel Summit: Top VC Brian Singerman Founders Fund (fmr Google)shares best of portfolioKKR to Buy WebMD for $2.8 BillionWebMD Health Corp. agreed to be taken private by buyout firm KKR & Co. for about $2.8 billion, five months after hiring bankers to explore a possible sale. Stockholders of the online health information company will receive $66.50 a share in cash, according to a statement Monday. The price is 20 percent more than Friday’s closing level and 29 percent higher than where the shares traded in mid-February, when New York-based WebMD hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to review strategic alternatives. The sale caps months of speculation about whether WebMD, which went public 12 years ago and is now used by 75 million consumers each month, would find a buyer. In 2012, when the stock was trading near all-time lows, a sale attempt had fallen apart. [ Bloomberg ] Reporter's notebook: Silicon Valley is changing lives 8,000 miles awayLess money, fewer deals: The tech 'bubble' is slowly deflating |