One of the year's largest fintech investments in Southeast Asia has closed after Philippines-based Voyager announced it raised $215 million. The bulk of the deal comes via a previously announced investment from Tencent which, alongside PE firm KKR, agreed to invest $175 million. Added to that, Voyager has pulled in a further $40 million from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and its Emerging Asia Fund, although that portion of the deal will take a few weeks to close. Continue Reading

A fintech whale quietly going about its business in Southeast Asia has come out from under the radar after Oriente, a Hong Kong-based business headed by Skype's first employee, announced that it has raised a whopping $105 million. Oriente was started in 2017 by Geoff Prentice, a Skype co-founder and ex-Chief Strategy Officer, Hubert Tai, a founder of Ping An's Lufax and Chinese unicorn dangdang.com, and investor Lawrence Chu. The trio came together when Prentice moved on to Atomico -- the VC...

America's reluctance to regulate crypto is costing the country on startups and potentially the future of technology. While there's been no breakout blockchain company so far -- excluding those that service the industry through crypto exchanges or mining -- nearly every major tech company has a stance on blockchain, and is actively looking into how it can work with it. "We have a few good U.S. investments," Arrington said of his $100 million 'Arrington XRP' fund. Continue Reading

A month after announcing its $55 million Series C, Japanese fintech startup Paidy has snagged a strategic investment from payment giant Visa. Paidy didn't disclose how much Visa put into its business, which has raised over $80 million to date, but it did say that it will work with the credit card giant to develop "new digital payment experiences" in Japan. For those in need of a refresher, the Paidy service is aimed at making it easier to shop online in Japan, where credit card penetration is...

Amazon appears to be restarting its funding efforts in India after Acko, the digital insurance startup in India, confirmed that the U.S. retail giant led a new round of funding for its business. Amazon -- which has been linked with an Acko investment since the start of this year -- backed lending startup Capital Float last month, and now it has led a $12 million funding round for Acko alongside Ashish Dhawan, the founder of PE firm ChrysCapital, and existing backer Catamaran Ventures. The...