Tech Meme

Olivia Poh / Bloomberg: Aspire, which provides Southeast Asian SMBs with international payments and other financial services, raised a $100M Series C led by Lightspeed and Sequoia  —  Aspire Pte, a fintech startup serving businesses, raised $100 million in a round that more than doubled its valuation, defying a market downturn for young tech firms. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal: Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent each run more Southeast Asia availability zones than AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, and are investing hundreds of millions of dollars  —  China’s Alibaba, Huawei and Tencent are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in developing markets including Thailand, Indonesia Lees verder op Tech Meme

David Klepper / Associated Press: Google’s Jigsaw plans to test video ads in Germany to “prebunk” misinformation, after promising results with a pilot project in Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia  —  After seeing promising results in Eastern Europe, Google will initiate a new campaign in Germany that aims to make people … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Ernesto Van der Sar / TorrentFreak: E-book pirate site Z-Library relaunches with unique domain names for each user, after the US DOJ seized 200+ domain names connected to the site in November 2022  —  The U.S. Government’s crackdown against Z-Library late last year aimed to wipe out the pirate library for good. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg: Amazon’s Zoox says its fully autonomous vehicle carried staff between its two main buildings in Foster City, California on public roads for the first time  —  Zoox Inc., the self-driving startup owned by Amazon.com Inc., carried passengers in its fully autonomous vehicle on public roads for the first time. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India-based insurance marketplace InsuranceDekho raised a $150M Series A led by Goldman and TVS, including ~$40M debt, a source says at a $475M-$500M valuation  —  The Indian insurance platform InsuranceDekho has raised $150 million in a Series A funding round as the more than a decade old firm eyes merger … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: Former Gemini Trust Chief Operating Officer Noah Perlman joined Binance in January 2023 as its chief compliance officer, in time for a US regulatory squeeze  —  Gemini Trust’s former Chief Operating Officer Noah Perlman has started as the chief compliance officer for Binance … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Neeva expands its AI search tool NeevaAI, which provides real-time info with citations, to logged-in users in Europe and Canada, after a US launch in January  —  Challenger search engine Neeva wants to replace the familiar “10 blue links” in search results with something more fitting for the modern AI age. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Ian Hamilton / UploadVR: Bigscreen unveils Bigscreen Beyond, a $999 PC-powered wired VR headset with two OLED 2560×2560 displays, a 127g visor, and SteamVR Tracking, shipping in Q3 2023  —  Darshan Shankar, the founder of VR’s leading Internet-powered platform for watching movies together … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Financial Times: Filings: Digital Currency Group begins selling shares in investment vehicles run by its subsidiary Grayscale at a steep discount, seeking to repay creditors  —  Digital assets conglomerate sells down holdings in prized investments at a discount to pay creditors Lees verder op Tech Meme