Plus, South Korea police bust US$19 million bitcoin Ponzi scheme using artificial intelligence
iflix raises funding from Japanese entertainment company and forms joint venture — [e27]
Japanese entertainment conglomerate Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. Ltd today announced a “significant” strategic investment in Southeast Asian streaming platform iflix, which marks its first investment in overseas media.
Through the investment, Yoshimoto Kogyo aims to accelerate development of its future projects in Asia.
The two companies also announced the formation of an exclusive joint venture (JV) out of Singapore to showcase Yoshimoto Group’s most popular content across iflix’s territories in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the corresponding distribution of iflix’s content in Japan.
The joint venture will also produce localised versions of proven content formats out of Japan.
Grab sets sight on US$6.5 billion funding round — [e27]
Today, Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab, announced plans to raise up to US$6.5 billion by the end of this year.
Explaining the move forward, Grab’s president Ming Maa shared that “In line with the tremendous transformation that South East Asia is currently undergoing, the opportunity is ripe for (Grab) to further grow in domains like healthcare, financial services amongst others”.
In a jab at rival GOJEK, which has set out to raise a $2 billion in its Series G round, Grab’s CEO Anthony Tan, said they “expect to be four times bigger than our closest competitor in Indonesia and across the region by the end of the year”.
South Korea police bust US$19M bitcoin pyramid scheme — [The Next Web]
South Korean police have arrested about a dozen people over a Ponzi scheme designed to use bitcoin to take advantage of people who have limited knowledge of the technology, according to The Next Web.
An interesting part of the arrest was that the perpetrators were collared by a special Artificial Intelligence Investigator, which was not a human being. The police taught the program to find patterns that point to a ponzi scheme.
The company, called M-Coin, were able to defraud US$18.7 million worth of payments from 56,000 people.
B Capital closes US$406 million in first tranche of new fund — [e27]
B Capital, the tech fund which was co-founded by the infamous ex-Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, announced the first close of its second fundraising at US$406 million, detailed in its US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
According to DealStreetAsia, B Capital confirmed that it has attracted 62 investors since its launch last month with no closing date or target of funding amount detailed.
In total, this first close has given the tech fund a total amount of US$766.1 million spread within two funds. Starting with US$360 million for its first fund called B Capital Fund followed with B Capital II LP.
Raj Ganguly, B Capital’s co-founder, and partner, will manage the fund as stated in the regulatory filing.
MM Digital raises seed funding — [DealStreetAsia]
MM Digital, The Burmese IT-services provider, has raised a “six-digit” seed funding, according to DealStreetAsia.
The money will be used on hiring and building its operational infrastructure.
The company raised the money from Seed Myanmar and Theta Capital.
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The post Today’s top tech news, iflix raises fresh funding and Grab aims for US$6.5B appeared first on e27.
Source: E27