CDP Institute

Google Cloud recently announced a strategic partnership with the Kuwaiti government to implement a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap across government bodies and state-owned enterprises. The two will team up to digitize citizen services, boost employee productivity, and implement digital transformation initiatives in healthcare, education, disaster recovery and smart living.

U.S. cybersecurity company SentinelOne is boosting its offerings in India. The company announced the launch of a virtual data centre in Mumbai that will enable Indian companies, which rely on SentinelOne to shield their business from cyberattacks in a simple, compliant way.

Google, Facebook and the Australian government have come to agreement whereby the tech companies will pay local publishers when their content appears online – with the caveat that it only applies when content is intentionally uploaded. This is an ongoing issue being negotiated globally and follows Facebook having shut down news content to users in Australia and in Canada. Meanwhile countries are looking to try to keep companies’ power in check.

Australia’s Finance Sector Union (FSU) has called out Westpac, one of Australia’s big four banks, for conducting a series of staff firings over the last two months, while at the same time reporting that the bank had a 22% surge in six-month net profits of over $4 billion. In that time, the bank laid off 751 people across many departments, claiming it needed to “cut costs during difficult economic times.”

Carousell has partnered with car-as-a-subscription company Carzuno to offer the ‘Carousell Car Subscription’ in Singapore, a fully digital service that allows users to choose and return their automobile without leaving their homes, leveraging the recently announced Carousell Certified program for cars.

Total funding into Southeast Asia (SEA) tech startups fell 71% to US$2.3 billion in the first half of 2023, from US$8 billion a year ago, said Tracxn Technologies Ltd in its SEA Tech Semi-Annual Funding report. The total funding in the first half is 45% lower than US$4.3 billion raised in the second half of 2022. The decline was largely driven by a plunge in late-stage investments in the first half, which fell 54% and 72% when compared with the second half of 2022 and first half of 2022 respectively.

In June, Visa announced the acquisition of the Brazilian payment platform Pismo for US$1 billion in a move to expand its presence in Latin America. With this operation, the Brazilian startup becomes the first success story of the Falabella Ecosystem, turning into a unicorn. Pismo, founded in 2016, is a payment processor and central banking platform operating in Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe. In 2019, Falabella started collaborating with Pismo to develop the digital wallet Fpay in Chilean market.

This is one of the lowest capital raising periods for Latin American startups in the last five years, according to a study by Endeavor. Latin American companies only raised US$406 million in the first quarter of 2023, according to the Venture Capital and Growth Equity Ecosystem 2023 study. The study also revealed that the number of investments is 40% above the first quarter of 2021.

Nigerian insurtech startup MyCover.ai is announcing today that it has raised US$1.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Pan-African venture capital fund Ventures Platform with participation from Founders Factory Africa and follow-on investor Techstars. The startup, which participated in the Techstars Toronto program last year, said it will use the investment to bolster its in-house operations and tech talent, invest heavily in its proprietary technology and strategically expand its operations into other African markets.

Flash, an Egyptian fintech that provides cashless payment solutions for consumers and businesses through a scan-and-pay service, has raised US$6 million in seed funding led by Addition, the venture capital firm headed by former Tiger Global executive Lee Fixel. Flourish Ventures and other strategic angel investors participated in the round, which will help the startup accelerate product development and customer and business acquisition in Egypt.

Kenyan startup Tappi is helping SMEs build their online identity in less than two minutes through a chat tool that automatically creates a webpage, which is indexed to be found online. Founded by Kenfield Griffith and Louis Majanja, Tappi allows SME owners to download its app, add their “look and feel”, and promote their business through a three-step process that goes to Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads using airtime credit or mobile money.

Quick Custom Intelligence (QCI) announced that a major deal brokered by Gaming Dynamics will add more than 15 venues in the Australasian market, as a part of QCI’s global expansion. QCI is a leader in the slots tooling industry and in data integration solutions.