By Steven Millward for techinAsia
Rakuten Ventures, the investment arm of the Japan-based ecommerce titan, today announced it’s doubling its Global Investment Fund to US$200 million. (more…)
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War of Messengers
TECHINASIA: E-Marketer predicts that by 2018 there will be 200 million new smartphone users in emerging Asia. To put that into context, that’s more users than there are currently in the whole of U.S. The opportunity is huge for the developers of these apps, but also for brands to tap into their potential to participate in peer to peer conversation in an engaging and meaningful way. (more…)
API-Based Money Mover Currency Cloud Taps Sapphire Ventures And Rakuten For $18M
TECHCRUNCH: Currency Cloud, a UK-based provider of cross-border money transferring services that are in turn used by a number of money transfer and payments businesses, has landed an $18 million round of funding. The Series C round — which brings the total raised by the company since 2012 to $36 million — is notable not only because it underscores progress for the company, but also because of who is doing the investing. (more…)
Rakuten To Put Its Bitnet Investment To Work And Accept Bitcoin Worldwide
TECHCRUNCH: Rakuten, Japan’s largest online retail firm, has announced that it will soon accept bitcoin across its global marketplaces. The company is putting its investment in Bitnet — a startup that raised $14.5 million last October — to work with this development. Bitnet, which was founded by ex-Visa execs and is rivaled by Coinbase and Bitpay, will initially be integrated into Rakuten’s U.S. marketplace to allow customers to pay in BTC.
