CDP Institute

With a fast-growing base of digital consumers and merchants, acceleration in e-commerce, and food delivery, the Philippines’ current internet economy has been recorded as the nation with the highest internet economy growth, with a rate of 93%, according to the latest collaborative research from Google, Temasek, Bain & Company. This has previously been predicted to grow from US$9b in 2020 to US$17b this year.

AI-powered customer data platform Blueshift has expanded into Asia Pacific with Sumit Ramchandani at the helm as MD, months after it raised US$30 million in Series C funding in February this year. Ramchandani was previously CEO of AirAsia Media Group.

OOOOO Entertainment Commerce Limited, a mobile commerce platform, is pleased to announce its most recent partnership with myFanPark Inc, to launch interactive, live online shopping in South Africa in 2022.

Kenyan startup WorkPay, which builds human resources (HR) and payroll solutions for Africa, has expanded into Nigeria. Originally called TozzaPlus until it rebranded in 2019, WorkPay is a cloud-based human resources management and payroll solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Africa. The startup’s time tracking and salary disbursement tools help African businesses save money and time by eliminating ghost workers from their payroll and inefficiencies associated with cash payments.

Kenyan B2B e-commerce platform Twiga has raised a US$50 million Series C funding round to help it scale its affordable food solutions across Africa. Founded in 2014, Twiga is a B2B food distribution company that builds fair and reliable markets for agricultural producers and retailers through transparency, efficiency and technology.

Coinbase is acquiring the startup Agara, which operates an AI-powered customer support platform. The size of the deal is between $40 Mn and $50 Mn. Four-year-old Agara, which started its journey in India and runs operations in the U.S. as well, had raised about $7 million from Blume Ventures, RTP Global, UTEC Japan and Kleiner Perkins prior to the acquisition.

Two 19-year-old entrepreneurs, who previously collaborated on a number of projects including a ride-hailing commute app for school kids and left Stanford last year to pursue a new startup, said on Sunday they have raised $60 million to disrupt India’s overcrowded and highly competitive grocery delivery market.

Starlink, part of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, has registered its business in India and is preparing to apply for licenses from the local government, according to a top official. A local unit is required for an internet company to offer its services in India, where Starlink — assuming that it gets the license — plans to offer 200,000 active terminals in over 160,000 districts by December 2022.

Singapore-based Near acquired a minority stake in MEmob+, a leading Middle Eastern SaaS provider of data-driven marketing solutions owned by Dubai-based Akama Holding. Near will work with MEmob+ to continue its global expansion with a push into the Middle East and Africa. The company has access to billions of device IDs globally, including more than 400 million in MENA.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seen application development services support the push for digital transformation projects, new research has claimed.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will open its first data centre and cloud region in New Zealand by 2024 as it continues to spread its wings in key Asia-Pacific markets.

A new study from Hazelcast has revealed 8 in 10 (79%) of retail and financial services companies struggle to harness real-time data and combine it with historical data to gain better insights for engaging customers.