The San Francisco-based cloud software company Anaplan has closed the latest round of VC funding to the tune of $90 million giving a valuation of the company at $1.09 billion. The latest investment round was led by Indian firm Premji Invest.
Investors
China's Baidu is considering investing in Indian's Zomato, BookMyShow, and BigBasket
The top online search engine already had the initial discussions with the three Indian startups. Baidu seeks to expand to India due to growing online population and internet user.
Drought leaves SA farmers owing $7.5 bln to banks
The debt burden of South African farmers reached to over Rand 125 billion ($7.5 billion). The total debt of farmers was up 14 percent in 2015 to Rand117 billion. Economists alert that the prevailing slump in commodities markets, tighter monetary, fiscal policy, drought conditions and drop in value of Rand will trigger higher than expected inflation rate.
MUFG buys 20% stake in Philippines' Security Bank
Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is said to have agreed to buy a 20 percent stock in Philippines' lender Security Bank Corp for $773 million (36.9 billion pesos), as an effort to strengthen its growth in Southeast Asia.
Qualcomm & TDK Form $3 billion Venture To Develop Smart Phones Using Radio Frequency Chips
Qualcomm Inc. and TDK group tie up to form a $ 3 billion project in Singapore. After completion of the venture by 2017, Qualcomm will own 51% of the new company with a provision to purchase TDK’s stake at a later time. Following the joint venture, Qualcom’s share price has fall a little but TDK share price has jumped by 5.5%, highest change within last two moths.
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The operator of Turkey’s busiest airport, TAV Havalimanlari Holding AS, is in talks to invest in businesses in the Philippines and Belgrade.
GoPro Inc., Sun Mateo, California based company is going to cut 7% people out of its 1500 employees following poor sales revenue in Q4. Some technical issues have been blamed for sluggish sales during the fourth quarter from the action camera maker’s behalf. But the company axes over the employees to restructure expenses. However, analysts presume, the fall in sales revenue may not be up to that magnitude.
Like other tech giants, Shape Security Inc., ‘Botnets’ security service provider has been eyeing to enter into Chinese ecommerce market since long. Inclusion of Beijing based investor, Northern Light and raising sufficient funds for spreading elsewhere- appear as two contributing factors. These factors have led Shape to penetrate the world’s largest ecommerce zone.
A group of technology executives in Canada and U.S. launched a Toronto-based $100 million venture fund. The group is focusing to fund enterprise software to establish its investment portfolio.
Venture capital firms raise less capital and face a slowdown in tech funding for 2015. However, the number is still above annual average since 2006.
Venture capital fund in the U.S. dropped by 9% in 2015, but a strong fundraising pace from 2014 continued. Investor become more selective to put the capital in startup companies.
John Legere has been witnessing a social media riot centering his F bomb blasting during a question- answer session in Twitter on Monday. One of T Mobile’s ‘Binge On’ has reportedly withdrawn itself from the platform. The embattled CEO has been compelled to seek apology but tries to make it conditional. T Mobile is accused of violating net neutrality through throttling by EFF and net neutrality advocates.
Toyota Mirai has been represented with a flat antenna at this week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Tuesday. The flat antenna technology is capable of widening the coverage area and shares the same communication standard across national borders. The Mirai trial still appears in the early testing stages and Toyota commits to install data communication modules in a wider range of vehicles.
Rents in London were up over eight percent, while overall national average was 4.8 percent in 2015. Majority of millennials prefer rented accommodation rather than buying a house or flat. Millennials are not bothered about maintenance works and other mortgage tension these days. The Generation Rent also considers buying a property is very expensive.
