Southeast Asia-focused Jungle Ventures announces $225M first close for its fourth fund

"attachment_2201231" aria-describedby="" style="width: 1024px">(From left to right) Jungle Ventures' founding partner Amit Anand, managing partner David Gowdey and founding partner Anurag Srivastava. Image Credits: Jungle Ventures Southeast Asia's funding boom is set to continue, with Jungle

Is it so bad to take money from Chinese venture funds?

China is becoming a superpower in the tech industry. According to Straits Times, China is the only place in the world where it takes less than six years for a startup to become a unicorn — it takes seven years in the U.S., eight years in the U.K. and 11 years in Germany. Despite geopolitical tens

Extra Crunch roundup: China’s new data privacy law, fractional farming, debt vs. equity

China's first data privacy laws go into effect on November 1, 2021. Will your company be in compliance? Modeled after the EU's GDPR, the new regulations “[introduce] perhaps the most stringent set of requirements and protections for data privacy in the world,” writes Scott W. Pi

Quizlet plans for IPO over a year after hitting unicorn status

Quizlet, a flashcard tool turned artificial intelligence-powered tutoring platform, is planning an initial public offering nearly a year after it was valued at $1 billion. According to people familiar with the matter, Quizlet is considerably far along in the process to go public. A recent job filin

Have ‘The Privacy Talk’ with your business partners

As a parent of teenagers, I'm used to having tough, sometimes even awkward, conversations about topics that are complex but important. Most parents will likely agree with me when I say those types of conversations never get easier, but over time, you tend to develop a roadmap of how to approach

Microsoft acquires TakeLessons, an online and in-person tutoring platform, to ramp up its edtech play

Microsoft said in January this year that Teams, its online collaboration platform, was being used by over 100 million students — boosted in no small part by the COVID-19 pandemic and many schools going partly or fully remote. Now, it’s made another acquisition to continue expanding its

Nigerian one-click checkout platform OurPass raises $1M pre-seed, wants to build ‘Fast for Africa’

We like to buy things online ranging from e-commerce stores to subscription-based sites. However, no one enjoys the hassle when you have to always re-log into different sites and stores. I mean, shopping can be a whole lot more fun if a fast logging and checkout system existed across all your favor

Snyk snags another $530M as valuation rises to $8.5B

Snyk, the Boston-based late-stage startup that is trying to help developers deliver more secure code, announced another mega-round today. This one was for $530 million on an $8.5 billion valuation, with $300 million in new money and $230 million in secondary funding, the latter of which is to help

Squad Mobility eyes shared platforms as target for its compact solar electric quadricycle

Squad Mobility’s vision of the perfect urban vehicle is a low-cost EV equipped with solar panels, swappable batteries and enough zip and range in its diminutive 6.5-foot package to meet the needs of city drivers. The early-stage Dutch startup, which recently revealed the final design of its q

Investors are doubling down on Southeast Asia’s digital economy

Southeast Asian tech companies are drawing the attention of investors around the world. In 2020, startups in the region raised over $8.2 billion, about four times more than they did in 2015. This trend continued in 2021, with regional M&A hitting a record high of $124.8 billion in the first hal

Some of the biggest names in private equity think this go-go market has another year or two (at least)

Earlier today, as part of a private event, this editor was afforded the opportunity to talk with some of the biggest names in the world of private equity, including Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein; Bain Capital co-chair Steve Pagliuca; Jean Salata, the CEO and founding partner of Baring Private

With $55M third fund, Scout Ventures is funding veterans ready to tackle the hardest technical challenges

When it comes to people pushing the frontiers of science, few institutions can match the talent of the Department of Defense, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. national laboratory system. With ample budgets and flexible oversight under that aura of national security, ambitious scientists and e

Wisetack closes on $45M to bring ‘buy now, pay later’ to in-person services

Buy now, pay later is growing globally — with various companies expanding to, and in, different parts of the world, such as Africa, Latin America and Asia. Here in the U.S., Affirm and Klarna are big players, and Square recently announced plans to acquire Afterpay, which also is eyeing growth

Quicken, one of the ‘first fintechs,’ is being sold again

Five and a half years after being acquired by a private equity firm, personal finance software company Quicken is announcing that it is being acquired by another private equity firm. In April 2016, an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital acquired Quicken from Intuit Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Today, Me