CDP Institute

Singapore’s Sea Group founder Forrest Li has assured staff that the worst is over and that its first-ever quarterly net profit marks a turning point for the company. In a memo sent out, Li said that in the last few months, the company was forced to make difficult decisions to adapt and to put the company on a more stable footing with fewer inefficiencies.

Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah) is anticipating another challenging year ahead of below trend global growth on the back of monetary policy shift to combat inflation, and persistent geopolitical tensions.

Forward Fooding, a collaborative platform for the food and beverage industry based in Barcelona, recently published the fourth edition of the FoodTech 500 ranking. There are 26 Latin American startups are among the startups that are transforming the food industry globally, according to this list. Companies that appear in this list are Instacrops (Chile), Pink Farms (Brazil), Todos comemos (Colombia), Perfekto (Mexico), Puna Bio (Argentina), Nude (Brazil), Appjusto (Brazil), Xilinat (Mexico), Food to save (Brazil), MightyGreens (Brazil), Dyfferent (Peru), Nutri Co (Peru), Micobytes (Chile) and others.

In a context of uncertainty in the startup ecosystem due to macroeconomic problems that took force in 2022 and the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Latin Leap arrives in Latin America with a US$25 million fund targeted at early-stage companies. It will mainly focus its investments in the fintech, healthtech, edtech, proptech, and mobility tech sectors of startups from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. There will be less capital for late-stage startups and more activity in early-stage ones.

Credable, an embedded finance platform that provides its clients with the technology stack, scoring capabilities and banking partners, has raised a $2.5 million seed round. It follows the pre-seed round of the embedded finance platform secured in early 2021 and led by The Continent Venture Partners (TCVP).

Egypt’s Almentor, the leading online video learning platform in Arabic, has raised a US$10 million pre-Series C round of funding to accelerate its growth towards its goal of serving 10 million learners in the MENA region. Founded in 2016, Almentor has worked with more than 950 prominent experts to create over 1,000 online courses for individuals, corporations, and government entities. It combines a personalised learning experience with high-quality Arabic content.

Social commerce has taken the African commercial landscape by storm recently, offering an easy and accessible way for consumers to purchase goods and services through social media platforms. One company at the frontlines of this is Peppa. Peppa is a social commerce platform making buying and selling on social media safer through a payment app that helps facilitate the payment process.

Adobe India will focus to bet on large banks, retail companies, and large organizations further to augment its expansion. The next big bets are in the large banks, retails companies, and large organizations where, through multiple acquisitions, can built the entire capabilities around digital marketing, customer centricity, and personalization at scale.

With this acquisition, Geniee will have an opportunity to expand into regions such as North America, India, and Europe, while Zelto will be able to develop and expand its current publisher monetization services in regions such as Southeast Asia.