Plus, SoundBrenner pre-sells US$200,000 worth of its IoT watch and Creative Ventures builds US$50 million fund

SoftBank appears ready to invest US$500 million into Grab — [Reuters]

Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant, Grab, is on the cusp of raising US$500 million from SoftBank as part of a US$1 billion fundraising effort, according to a report from Reuters.

The investment is in line with Grab’s goal of raising US$3 billion over 2018.

It also comes just days after TechCrunch reported the company’s top competition, Go-Jek, is preparing to launch in Singapore this month.

Grab has already raised over US$6 billion in its history.

Hong Kong IoT startup SoundBrenner sells US$200,000 in pre-orders via Kickstarter — [email communications]

SoundBrenner, a Hong Kong-based company that has built an IoT watch aimed at musicians, has sold US$200,000 worth of pre-orders for its product called SoundBrenner Core.

The watch is meant to help bands play together with a built-in metronome, a magnetic tuner, decibel meter and — of course — a watch. Pitching itself as the ‘musicians Swiss Army Knife’, SoundBrenner it working to take multiple tools and put it under one handy watch.

The company raised US$1.5 million in January 2017.

Indonesia becomes Google’s eight cloud region in APAC — [Channel Asia Singapore]

Google Cloud has made Indonesia an official cloud region, making it the eighth such region in APAC, according to Channel Asia Singapore.

The move implies that Google is expecting to build-out its cloud infrastructure in Indonesia. In September, Google revealed additional cloud zones in Hong Kong and Osaka, Japan.

Tencent reaches into Philippines with investment into Voyager — [e27]

Voyager, a fintech company started by PLDT, a telco, has raised money from Tencent, as first reported by TechCrunch. The move follows a similar investment by Alibaba into Mynt, which happened 18-months ago.

Voyager’s service covers a range of digital financial options that include a prepaid wallet, digital payment option for retails, a remittance network for sending money, a digital lending service, and a loyalty and rewards program.

Creative Ventures closes US$50 million to link Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia — [e27]

Creative Ventures, an investment firm based in San Francisco, has raised US$50 million to invest in Southeast Asia’s deep-tech companies.

The firm is targeting companies in the following verticals: construction, manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, food, energy and healthcare.

The company has plans to expand to Israel, Singapore and Taiwan in the near future.

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