February 26, 2019 @ 3:54 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

SoftBank Corp. (TOKYO: 9434) announced on Tuesday it has formed a new partnership with  TBCASoft, Inc. to launch a blockchain-based “Identification & Authentication” Working Group under the Carrier Blockchain Study Group (CBSG), the global blockchain consortium of telecom carriers. According to the duo, TBCASoft created a new foundation… Read More

February 8, 2019 @ 8:55 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

OakNorth, a UK-based fintech startup, has successfully secured $440 million through its latest investment round, which was led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.  Launched in 2015 by Rich Khosla and Joel Perlman, OakNorth claims to be Europe’s fastest-growing fintech company by assets and valuation. The company… Read More

February 7, 2019 @ 2:17 am By Max Lyadvinsky  |  

A successful startup needs successful venture capital (VC) backing, right? Well, not always. The status quo of startup funding is beginning to shift as smaller, more nimble outfits backed by crowdfunding campaigns have proven that they, too, can reach stratospheric heights. Moreover, the founders of… Read More

November 18, 2018 @ 8:14 am By JD Alois  |  

Digital bank Revolut is revving up for a $500 million series D funding round, according to recent reports. This next capital injection follows the last round from earlier this year when Revolut raised $250 million at a valuation of $1.7 billion. The funding validated its… Read More

September 29, 2018 @ 11:18 am By Xu Gao  |  

Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Goes Public in Hong Kong On September 26th, Bitmain, a Beijing-based Bitcoin mining giant, finally disclosed its IPO prospectus to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. CICC will serve as the sole sponsor. According to the prospectus, Bitmain’s net… Read More

September 15, 2018 @ 7:00 pm By Xu Gao  |  

Beijing Launches Internet Court, Accepting and Hearing Cases of Online Lending On September 9, Beijing unveiled its Internet court. The court, located in Fengtai District, mainly accepts cases regarding the Internet and intellectual property rights, including disputes caused by online loans, online shopping contracts, and… Read More

August 28, 2018 @ 10:54 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

SoftBank’s Vision Fund is reportedly looking to invest $100 million into Chinese insurtech startup, ZhongAn. The upcoming investment comes just weeks after ZhongAn announced the launch of its new its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, ZhongAn Technology Intelligent Open Platform for Insurers. ZhongAn, which was launched by Ant Financial,… Read More

July 30, 2018 @ 10:43 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

PayPay Corporation, a joint venture created by SoftBank Corp. and Yahoo Japan Corporation, announced on Monday it will launch “PayPay” smartphone payment services using barcodes (QR code) this upcoming fall. PayPay Corporation reported it will team up with India’s largest digital payment company Paytm, a… Read More

May 31, 2018 @ 10:57 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

SoftBank Corp. announced on Thursday results for the third round of its SoftBank Innovation Program, which is a program that seeks a wide range of innovative solutions and technologies from around the world to consider for commercialization. SoftBank reported it will tie up with eight companies… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 9:40 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

SoftBank Corp. announced on Wednesday it has teamed up with CloudMinds Technology for the development of an authentication solution based on blockchain. The two companies reported that they have developed the new solution by combining CloudMinds’ blockchain-based authentication with the mobile carrier’s authentication platform. According… Read More

April 17, 2018 @ 11:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Singapore based Funding Societies has closed a USD $25 million Series B funding round. The peer to peer lending platform said the oversubscribed offer was led by Softbank Ventures Korea. Additionally, Funding Societies said it has received expanded credit facilities from banks and other financial… Read More

January 3, 2018 @ 1:02 pm By JD Alois  |  

Hindsight is usually 20-20. And there are times when maybe you just want to close your eyes and go back in time. Below is an interesting tweet back that shares some interesting information from the early days of AngelList and Uber, when the ride sharing… Read More

December 19, 2017 @ 11:42 am By JD Alois  |  

Prominent Insurtech firm Lemonade is having a pleasant Holiday season following the announcement they have raised $120 million to fuel platform growth. The funding round was led by SoftBank, a group that has been highly active in the Fintech sector. Valuation was rumored to be… Read More

November 14, 2017 @ 9:56 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp. announced on Monday it has launched the third round for its SoftBank Innovation Program, which is a program that seeks a wide range of innovative solutions and technologies from around the world to consider for commercialization. SoftBank stated that the innovation program aims… Read More

October 3, 2017 @ 10:39 pm By JD Alois  |  

Online SME lender Kabbage is raising $161 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Fintech firm filed the Form D last week indicating it had already received $80,573,040 with the same amount remaining to be raised. Kabbage announced in early… Read More

August 3, 2017 @ 10:28 am By JD Alois  |  

Kabbage is out with some big news. SoftBank has committed $250 million in an equity investment into the online lender. This is a significant statement on the belief that Kabbage is on the right trajectory when it comes to the competitive online lending market. SoftBank… Read More

June 13, 2017 @ 12:30 pm By Therese Torris  |  

This article highlights three takeaways for Fintech firms from Mary Meeker’s 355-page-long report: 1) The Internet’s center of gravity shifts to Asia; 2) The biggest get bigger; 3) Fintechs must use gamification to improve customer engagement. Since 2001, Mary Meeker, a Partner at venture capital… Read More

May 21, 2017 @ 5:58 pm By JD Alois  |  

The SoftBank Vision Fund announced its first major close yesterday with over U.S. $93 billion of committed capital. In addition to SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) and the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as previously announced, investors also include the Mubadala Investment… Read More

May 18, 2017 @ 9:19 am By JD Alois  |  

Paytm has announced that SoftBank has invested in their parent company One97 Communications Limited. The $1.6 billion commitment is said to be the single largest funding round from a single investor in India. Crowdfund Insider reported this past week that Paytm was discussing an investment… Read More

May 12, 2017 @ 7:51 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Paytm is now in talks with SoftBank to raise up to $1.9 billion in fresh funding, hiking its value to a cool $8 billion or more, according to multiple new sources. Paytm counts over 218 million wallet users; last month alone Paytm clocked 255 million transactions.  Founded… Read More