Friday, March 29

Author: Aditya

Paypal First time invested in a Blockchain Startup
FUNDING

Paypal First time invested in a Blockchain Startup

Leading online payment transaction platform PayPal has made its first-ever investment in a blockchain technology company known as Cambridge Blockchain. Cambridge Blockchain helps financial institutions and other companies manage sensitive data using shared ledgers. The company has raised Series A funding. Neither PayPal nor Cambridge Blockchain answer the mail sent by Pixr8 team during the publishing of this article. In a recent filings with the SEC Cambridge Blockchain mention that it has raised $7 million close of its Series A in May of 2018 from HCM Capital, the VC arm of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple, as well as Digital Currency Group. The total capital raised by the Cambridge Blockchain is $10.5 million. The subsequent $3.5 million came from PayPal ...
New Street Technologies raises USD $2 Million
FUNDING

New Street Technologies raises USD $2 Million

Bengaluru, March 25, 2019: Bengaluru-based technology company New Street Technologies has raised a USD 2 million investment led by Unitus Ventures & Other investors including Mohit Davar, Chairman, International Association of Money Transfer Networks etc. Founded in August 2017, New Street Technologies builds and operates blockchain enabled platforms for institutional clients. The company’s flagship platform – MIFIX brings together, banks, business correspondents and cash outlets to efficiently originate and manage credit through easy integration with existing systems and processes. MIFIX has a wide range of customers such as banks, non-banking financial corporations, and money transfer operators / networks in India and overseas. It is estimated that the market for sma...
Logistics Startup Baxi-Fresh Raises 2 Crore INR
FUNDING

Logistics Startup Baxi-Fresh Raises 2 Crore INR

Delivery start-up Baxi-Fresh has raised Rs 2 crore from its existing investors, including Alok Mittal, founder and CEO of Indifi Technologies, Nitin Singhal, a UK-based angel investor and Mahendra Pratap, founder and CEO of Shiksha Infotech. The company said it aims to use the funds to expand and launch its delivery services in 200 residential neighbourhoods in Gurugram and New Delhi by July this year. "With this bridge investment we will quickly scale our operations. The money will be used to hire key team members, market the service and strengthen our operations as we gear up to cover the entire Delhi-NCR region over the next few quarters," Baxi-Fresh founder and CEO Ashutosh Johri said. Baxi-Fresh employs part-time delivery staff who deliver milk, groceries and other household...
Venuelook, an online marketplace for booking venues raises pre-series A
FUNDING

Venuelook, an online marketplace for booking venues raises pre-series A

New Delhi: Venuelook, an online-to-offline (O2O) platform and marketplace for venue aggregation, recommendation and booking has raised an undisclosed amount in their pre-series A funding from marquee angel investors and successful entrepreneurs like Srikant Sastri (Co-founder, Crayon Data), Shailesh Rao (Senior Advisor - TPG; McKinsey & Co; Board Member - JLL), VP Rajesh (Managing Partner - Banyan Capital Advisors LLP) and Vishal Sampat (Founder of Convonix).   Venuelook’s proprietary aggregation and AI backed algorithms help identify and match customer requirements with the best venue options available, thus simplifying the venue discovery and booking process for wedd...
Elara acquires home rental platform FastFox for nearly $14.5 million
ACQUISITION

Elara acquires home rental platform FastFox for nearly $14.5 million

Elara Technologies, which owns three realty portals Housing.com, PropTiger and Makaan has acquired home rental brokerage platform FastFox.com at a valuation of nearly Rs 100 crore as part of its growth plans. After this acquisition, Singapore-based Elara entered into the online-to-offline home rentals space that has a market size of over Rs 20,000 crore. About Elara Technologies funding, the realty market based platform has raised $105 million so far from investors as equity. It also raised $35 million debt last year for organic and inorganic growth. "Until now we were in the home rentals market through listings on both our platforms, Housing.com and Makaan.com. With this acquisition, we will now provide end-to-end on-ground assistance to both landlords and tenants in collaborat...
Apple looking to launch Netflix style streaming service
Tech

Apple looking to launch Netflix style streaming service

San Francisco: Apple is expected to launch a slew of new products at its Cupertino headquarters in California on Monday, including a Netflix competitor, a revamped news service and a subscription-based gaming offering. The event, to be hosted at the Steve Jobs theatre on campus, will herald a new era for the iPhone maker as it enters the fast-growing global content streaming market. "Apple has been looping a video from the theatre, teasing its focus on television," reports The Verge. The livestreaming video is stylised to look like a television set, and has been switching between a handful of different angles of the Steve Jobs theatre. Apple has invested over $1 billion into making new content and the streaming service is set to compete with the giants including Amazon, N...
Ayodhya based Yash Papers to invest Rs 150 cr on capacity expansion
BUSINESS

Ayodhya based Yash Papers to invest Rs 150 cr on capacity expansion

Uttar Pradesh-based Yash Papers is investing around Rs 150 crore to double production capacity for the growth of its business, a senior company official has said. The company has a manufacturing plant in Ayodhya where it makes speciality paper and various paper products from sugarcane pulp. It also makes paper bags and tableware/containers. "We are expanding our capacity with a capex of around 150 crore. We will be doubling the production across our products range," said Ved Krishna, strategy head of Yash Papers. On the expected turnover of this fiscal, Krishna said the company's revenue will grow by 25-30 per cent this fiscal. The capacity of pthe pulp mill is 130 tonnes per day, while it makes 10 lakh pieces of tableware a day. The company is funding investment through inter...
BlackRock acquires eFront in $1.3 billion Cash
ACQUISITION

BlackRock acquires eFront in $1.3 billion Cash

NEW YORK & PARIS- BlackRock today announced that it has made a binding offer and entered into an exclusive agreement, subject to the conditions below, to acquire 100% of the equity interests in eFront, the world’s leading end-to-end alternative investment management software and solutions provider, from private equity firm Bridgepoint and eFront employees, for $1.3 billion in cash. The combination of eFront with Aladdin, BlackRock’s investment operating platform used by more than 225 institutions around the world, will set a new standard in investment and risk management technology. eFront, which serves more than 700 clients in 48 countries, is a comprehensive technology solution for managing the alternatives investment lifecycle, from due diligence and portfolio planning to p...
Pinterest files for IPO on NYSE
Market

Pinterest files for IPO on NYSE

Pinterest, an image sharing platform with an estimated 250 million users, filed for a public share offering Friday, the latest of the big venture-backed startups to hit Wall Street. The San Francisco-based bulletin board that connects people with interests including food, fashion, travel and lifestyle said it would trade under the symbol PINS on the New York Stock Exchange. "Pinterest is where more than 250 million people around the world go to get inspiration for their lives," the company said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is expected to seek a valuation of around $12 billion. "They come to discover ideas for just about anything you can imagine: daily activities like cooking dinner or deciding what to wear, major commitments like remodeling a h...
Facebook glitch exposes 600 million users passwords to its 20,000 employees
News

Facebook glitch exposes 600 million users passwords to its 20,000 employees

AFP: Facebook Inc said on Thursday it has resolved a glitch that exposed passwords of millions of users stored in readable format within its internal systems to its employees. The passwords were accessible to as many as 20,000 Facebook employees and dated back as early as 2012, cybersecurity blog KrebsOnSecurity, which first reported in the issue, said in its report. "These passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed them," the company said. A senior Facebook employee said, "an internal investigation by the company so far indicates that between 200 million to 600 million Facebook users may have had their account passwords stored in plain text." Facebook said the issue was ...
InstareM Raises $41 mn Series C Funding Round
FUNDING

InstareM Raises $41 mn Series C Funding Round

InstaReM, Southeast Asia’s hottest digital cross-border payments company has announced the close of its US$ 41 million Series C funding round.The latest round of funding is led by Singapore’s Vertex Growth Fund (their first investment in Southeast Asia) and is supported by a new investor Atinum Investment, a leading Venture Capital investor from South Korea.The proceeds of this round will be used to drive growth in new markets, and to drive growth in existing and new market and support the launch of new products (including a cards platform). London, 19 MARCH 2019: InstaReM, Asia’s only digital cross-border payments company closes US $41 million Series C funding round in Singapore. The company’s spectacular growth has attracted an additional US $20 million investment in Series C round, ...
HH Global Acquires Alecom
ACQUISITION

HH Global Acquires Alecom

Alecom, a print and luxury brand marketing services provider, has been acquired by HH Global, in a deal agreed on 28 February 2019. HH Global Ltd., founded in 1991, is a leading, independent marketing execution partner to prominent brands in 44 countries. The company offers innovative and tailored solutions for the outsourced procurement of all types of printed marketing materials and creative production services, that drive down cost, speed time to market, improve quality, and increase sustainability. Alecom was established in 2000 and supports both corporate and luxury brands including Boiron, Dior, Hermes, Cartier and Tag Heuer. The acquisition will deliver significant value to the clients of both HH Global and Alecom, through the strength of their combined propositio...