CDP Institute

Stagwell is expanding its creative, content, media and marketing communications capabilities throughout Latin America with a new partnership between Stagwell agency Allison+Partners and Latin American heritage agency Grupo Garnier. The partnership will see Grupo Garnier rebranding offices in eight markets as Allison+Partners, including in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico.

Cairo based Pravica, a communication platform using Blockchain technology to empower user privacy and security through decentralised identity, has announced an investment (amount undisclosed) from CV VC (Crypto Valley Venture Capital).

South African startup Abela is supporting the informal economy with the same autonomy and security that banks offer to the formal economy via a QR code-enabled system. Launched in August 2020, Abela started as a QR code-enabled payment platform offering users without a bank account the ability to receive tips and payments digitally. Since then, it has broadened its approach to include the entire informal economy.

India’s bus market is a US$20 billion opportunity, almost twice the size of cabs. The startup was operating about 1,900 buses before the pandemic hit last year. Now the startup is operating 2,500 buses and has signed up several thousand more. As part of the new financing round, the startup said it will use US$10 million of the proceeds to buy back stock options to reward its current and former employees as well as some early angel investors.

Licious, a Bangalore-based startup that sells fresh meat and seafood online, said it has raised US$52 million in a new financing round and become the first direct-to-consumer startup to attain the unicorn status in the world’s second-largest internet market. Licious has grown over 500% in the past one year with over 2 million unique customers.

Ad tech and martech companies are using humorous brand creative to talk about a future beyond third-party cookies.

The rapid growth in ecommerce during the pandemic has heightened the need for real-time insights to accommodate fast-changing customer behaviour.

A parliamentary inquiry has heard the government’s COVIDSafe app has now cost taxpayers more than $9 million despite being rarely used to assist contract tracers in their efforts.

Multinational investment bank and financial services company, United Overseas Bank (UOB) is investing up to SG$500 million in digital innovation initiatives as it seeks to double its retail customers. With the investment, the bank aims to digitally serve more than seven million customers across ASEAN by 2026.

Singapore’s Mediacorp has joined forces with analytics firm Brand Metrics to offer its clients brand uplift studies about their advertising campaigns.