Friday, March 29

Tag: rakuten

Rakuten and Vodafone Invest in AST & Science’s Space Venture
FUNDING

Rakuten and Vodafone Invest in AST & Science’s Space Venture

TOKYO, LONDON, TEXAS – March 3, 2020 - Rakuten and Vodafone have become the lead investors in a venture to extend mobile coverage to more people and devices across the planet, using the first mobile broadband network that will be broadcast from space. Branded SpaceMobile, the low-Earth-orbit (LEO), low-latency satellite network from AST & Science will be the first in the world to connect directly to standard smartphones. The company holds an extensive patent and IP portfolio for its ground and space technologies. “SpaceMobile will be particularly transformative to the growing US$1 trillion annual global mobile market because it will eliminate the coverage gaps faced by today’s five billion mobile subscribers moving in and out of connectivity every day. It will also help the...
Nasper is Set To Acquire Citrus Pay For $180 Million
ACQUISITION

Nasper is Set To Acquire Citrus Pay For $180 Million

Citrus Pay, founded by Jitendra Gupta and Satyen Kothari in 2011 set to acquire by South African media and internet conglomerate Naspers for around $150-180 million, in an all-cash transaction deal. Japan's internet major Rakuten was also one of the contender to acquire Citrus Pay. However, the deal fell through. This acquisition deal is one of the largest deals in the Indian payments market. Earlier Snapdeal buy out Freecharge for $400 million (30% cash, 70% stock). The domestic payments market has been abuzz with mergers and acquisitions in the past year after vast opportunity created by leading players Paytm and Freecharge. ALSO READ: PayPal founder invest $3 million in Mumbai based startup citrus Pay Payment company Citrus Pay acts as a bridge between bank acc...