CDP Institute

Software company Splunk is launching a significant update to its partner program today, including rebranding the program as the “Splunk Partnerverse”.

A decade’s worth of digital development ensured Purebaby, Australia’s largest independent babywear brand was able to adjust and grow during the huge shift to digital consumption forced upon retailers by the COVID disruption.

Companies in the Asia Pacific that have continued to invest in their customer experience (CX) over the past year are more likely to have maximized their resiliency during the pandemic and grown their customer base in the past six months.

Carousell Group has acquired Ox Street, an end-to-end marketplace for authenticated sneakers and streetwear in Southeast Asia. Following Carousell Group’s US$100 million investment from STIC Investments in September, this acquisition underpins the group’s strategic priority to accelerate its recommerce growth in Greater Southeast Asia. Ox Street will continue to operate as its own brand, retaining its name, platform, and team. According to Carousell, the acquisition will drive a synergistic partnership between the marketplaces.

The advantages of having open communication between different products and services are nearly infinite for credit scoring, moving money between bank accounts and spanning verticals like the neobanks, credit providers and personal finance products Latin Americans use every day.

VCs continue to funnel money into the region. Brazil and Mexico, the two largest markets in terms of population and economic activity, have shown the biggest uptick in startup funding. The Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America (LAVCA), a not-for-profit membership organization, reports that VCs invested $10.3 billion in more than 400 Latin America startups in the first half of 2021, doubling the investment in the same period in 2020. Brazil is home to 53% of Latin-America startups, while Mexico contributes 14%.

Sandbox, the Nigeria-based e-commerce fulfillment platform for merchants in Africa, has announced the completion of a $1.8 million seed round from investors including 4DX Ventures, Enza Capital, FJLabs and Golden Palm Investments. The new funding will be used to expand the company’s operations in other countries across West Africa, bolster the development of its product range, and hire new talent.

Nigerian prop-tech startup Rent Small Small has been accepted to join the latest cohort of the Techstars Toronto accelerator programme, securing US$120,000 in funding and assistance in scaling. Launched in 2018, Rent Small Small is an online platform that allows users to identify homes to rent and pay rent monthly. The startup has so far helped renters save NGN550 million (US$1.3 million) on legal and agency fees and provided over 12,000 monthly stays across 18 locations in Lagos State.

Vantage Data Centers, an American IT company has begun the construction of a new R15 billion data center campus. The first phase of the project (80MW) will go online in the third quarter of 2022 and will be based in Waterfall, Gauteng.

Boxed, an e-commerce grocery platform which sells bulk consumables and licenses its e-commerce software to enterprise retailers, announced a partnership with 786 Holdings Limited to deliver e-commerce software and services technology to the Middle East and North Africa. The partnership is expected to initially launch in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and subsequently in the UAE, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey and Kuwait.

Stripe is making another acquisition to expand the services it offers alongside its core payments product. The company is acquiring Recko, which has built a platform that lets businesses track and automate payments reconciliation. Recko is based out of Bangalore, India, and significantly this will be Stripe’s first acquisition in the country.

Consumers in South East Asia (SEA) have significantly increased in-app purchases in 2021 compared to 2020. On average, the six SEA markets examined (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) have seen a 240% increase in spending, with the Philippines experiencing a massive 371% increase, the highest growth in purchases in the region.