CDP Institute

Amazon India is developing a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool called SahAI (help/assist) for its business partners to help them with the backend of any product. Still in trial stage, this new generative AI is aimed at breaking barriers and helping many new businesses to come on the marketplace.

Australia’s largest telco, Telstra is acquiring tech consultancy Versent along with its subsidiary Stax, which provides self-serve cloud management for AU$267.5 million. The intent is to help Telstra meet growing demand for cloud-led services.

Global Payments Oceana introduced a platform that provides a single customer experience incorporating e-commerce, in-person EFTPOS and real-time PayTo capabilities. This will enable customers to view best-in-payment channel options.

South Korea’s KakaoBank is joining Grab, Singtel and Emtek Group to invest in Indonesia’s Superbank by acquiring a 10% stake in the upcoming digital bank through the issuance of new shares. The move comes ahead of Superbank’s planned launch of its app to the public in 2023. Superbank was previously known as Bank Fama International, which was majority owned by Indonesia-listed media and technology conglomerate Elang Mahkota Teknologi, or Emtek Group.

Brands in Singapore are prioritizing customer experiences to drive growth, but are challenged by reduced budgets, according to new research from Adobe. To save on costs, organizations in Singapore are cutting their marketing and customer experience budgets – 28% have already done so and 35% will in the next 12 months.

South African fintech Stitch, which has built an “end-to-end payments solution designed to meet the complex and evolving payments needs for its enterprise clients,” has raised US$25 million in an extension round of funding led by global fintech investor Ribbit Capital, bringing Stitch’s total Series A to US$46 million.

Enza Capital, a venture capital firm that backs startups “organizing the offline online” and “digitizing key African industries,” has closed US$58 million across two funds. In 2019, the company launched an early-stage fund to “find, back, and help build category-defining startups” in the pre-seed and seed stages. The fund is still active and has invested in fintech, logistics, health, human capital and climate tech companies.

Kenya’s Lipa Later, a fintech platform founded to empower African businesses to do more by enabling e-commerce, financial inclusion, and shopping on a centralised and fully integrated platform, has raised KES500 million (US$3.4 million) from a privately-placed debt issuance to help it expand its offerings.

Conversational engagement platform Gupshup has introduced UPI payments for people using feature phones via a native app called GSPay. The app, developed along with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), will use SMS or even IVR based payments system, and do away with the need of data or internet connectivity.

As part of its significant growth strategy in India, Hakuhodo INC, Japan’s second largest advertising company has acquired AdGlobal360(AGL) for an undisclosed sum. Adglobal360 was ranked as the fastest growing MarTech Company in 2019 by Deloitte. AdGlobal360 is Hakuhodo’s first acquisition in India as it seeks to enhance its technology and digital footprint.

Australian Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) Katonic.ai raised AU$1.6M (~US$1,015,825) in pre-Series A. The funding will be used to expand the staff and to expand products and services.

Antitrust approval will be the largest hurdle for Southeast Asia-based super app Grab as the ride-hailing and food delivery firm flagged as a potential suitor for Foodpanda’s business in selected markets, analysts said.