Also, UOB partners with Razer Pay and Didi Chuxing raises US$500 million
UOB plans to onboard Razer Pay when it launches in Singapore — [Press Release]
United Overseas Bank (UOB) plans to partner with Razer Pay when the digital payment system launches in Singapore. Razer Pay is expected to launch in the city-state in the next few months.
The partnership will be exclusive to UOB and will allow people to use Razer Pay to top-up their personal e-wallets as well as allow Razer Pay merchants to process payments. UOB users will be able to top-up their e-wallets using eNETS or FAST (Fast and Secure Transfers), a fairly new money transfer system in Singapore.
Razer Pay was launched in Malaysia on July 4 and has since seen 500,000 people start using the system.
Bangalore online learning platform raises US$21 million from Sequoia, SAIF and Nexus — [TechCrunch]
Unacademy, a startup that allows students/educators to create and consume courses, has raised US$21 million from Sequoia India, SAIF and Nexus, according to TechCrunch.
The company operates two separate apps, one that allows teachers to build courses and another to let students access them. It has grown into India’s largest online learning platform and the money will be used to grow its teacher/student user base.
Unacademy has a cool origin story as it was Founded by Gaurav Munjal as a YouTube channel in 2010 and run for 5 years in that form until Munjal added two more co-founders and officially turned it into a startup.
Didi Chuxing raises US$500 million from Booking to help finance in-app integration — [TechCrunch]
Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has raised US$500 million from Booking, according to TechCrunch. Moving forward, the Booking.com and Agoda will have options for people to book their rides via a Didi app integration.
Didi users will also be able to book Booking.com and Agoda hotels on the app.
In other Didi news today, Reuters reports that it will spin-off its car services portal in an effort to pursue a US$1.5 billion IPO.
SGInnovate invests in MediLot, a blockchain-based medical startup — [e27]
MediLot, which leverages the blockchain and artificial intelligence to help people gain access to their medical record, announced today it has raised money from SGInnovate, the government-backed private enterprise in Singapore.
The company also leverages its technology to help researches access more precise data to analyse medical trends.
Currently, medical records are stored centrally and can be quite difficult to access when abroad or visiting a different hospital. The distributed ledger allows people to access their medical records and MediLot has built a system that keeps them hidden from others.
The company has also raised money from Signum Captial.
Elon Musk Thailand cave tweet results in Tesla share stock dive — [The Guardian]
After Elon Musk called a British cave diver a “pedo”, the price of Tesla stock fell by 2.75 per cent over the last 24 hours. The diver, Vernon Unsworth, was initially critical of Musk’s attempt to get involved with the Thailand cave rescue drama that captured the world’s attention.
Unsworth told The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-diver-in-thai-cave-rescue-stunned-after-attack-by-elon-musk he was “shocked and very angry” by the comments, which were baseless.
To add my personal opinion for a moment: Trading insults on Twitter is nothing new and is not inherently newsworthy. However, accusing someone of pedophilia crosses a line and is both cruel and reckless. Unsworth should have a fairly easy case to sue Musk, which he should aggressively pursue.
“Blockchain” companies grow by six-times in China — [South China Morning Post]
Companies in China have used the term ‘blockchain’ in their name six times more often in 2018 than they did during the whole of 2017, according to the South China Morning Post.
In 2018, there were 3,078 with the word 区块链 (blockchain) in their company profile. In 2017 there were 555. According to the article, only 817 US companies had blockchain in their corporate information while 335 in the UK had the word.
The name-trend phenomenon is fairly common in China with the terms “dot-com” and “artificial intelligence” seeing similar boosts during earlier booms.
Singapore’s CCube Angels invests in India’s nutri-food startup Inner Being [press release]
Inner Being Wellness, a nutri-food startup based out of Hyderabad in India, has secured INR 35 million ()US$512,000) from investors including Singapore-based CCube Angels Network, Atim Kabra, Vipin Agarwal, and Sandesh Pandhare.
Inner Being plans to use the funds for new product development, expansion in top tier cities in India and few other countries, marketing activities. It also aims to build a healthy lifestyle brand in the breakfast and snacks space.
Inner Being’s is focussed on launching nutri-food that are rich in plant protein, rich in dietary fibre, gluten-free, low in glycaemic index (GI), natural and pesticide free.
The company has launched several millet based products like Jowar Idli, Jowar Upma, Ragi Malt, Jowar Flakes, Millet Cookies in Hyderabad. It will shortly introduce a range of new mixes such as Quinoa Porridge, Millet & Nut Cake, Gluten-free Pizza, Millet Pancake, which will cater to health-conscious consumers.
—
Copyright: freerlaw / 123RF Stock Photo
The post Today’s top tech news, July 17: Tesla shares fall on Musk Twitter comments and Unacademy raises funding appeared first on e27.