S&P Global Market Intelligence provides a roundup of recent investment deals and updates in the Asia-Pacific technology, media and communications sector.
TOP NEWS
* SoftBank Group Corp.'s SoftBank Vision Fund will invest US$2.25 billion in General Motors Co.'s self-driving unit GM Cruise Holdings LLC, SoftBank said May 31. The news comes after a May 10 Financial Times report that said Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison and Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund, along with German car manufacturer Daimler AG will join Japanese banks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Mizuho Bank Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. to fill the US$7 billion needed to reach SoftBank Group's US$100 billion Vision Fund goal.
* SenseTime Group Ltd. on May 31 said it raised US$620 million in a second funding round in two months, increasing the Chinese artificial intelligence startup's valuation to more than US$4.5 billion.
STARTUP FUNDING
* Naver Corp. invested 18.4 billion won in Didi Chuxing Technology Co. Ltd., which will see Naver owning about a 0.03% stake in the Chinese ride-hailing company, The Korea Economic Daily reported May 16.
* Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed Chinese online healthcare solutions platform WeDoctor raised US$500 million in an investment round, reportedly valuing the firm at US$5.5 billion ahead of its planned listing within the year, according to a May 8 Reuters report.
CAPITAL INVESTMENTS
* Indonesian ride-hailing provider PT Go-Jek Indonesia said May 24 that it will allocate US$500 million for its international expansion, beginning with ride-hailing services and followed by other platforms such as Go-Car, Go-Food and Go-Send.
* Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. invested more than 10 billion Chinese yuan to build a cloud database in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, Beijing Daily reported May 18.
* KDDI Corp. is looking to invest ?200 billion in overseas operations, acquisitions and other services this year, The Nikkei reported May 10. The Japanese telecom giant will expand its telecom offerings in Southeast Asia and develop new services in e-commerce and finance for Japan.
* Kakao Japan Corp. on May 10 said it raised about ?10 billion through a private equity placement with its parent company Kakao Corp. and its unit Podotree Inc. The company plans to allocate funds to strengthen the content offering of its animation app Piccoma as well as its new video streaming app Piccoma TV, scheduled to launch this summer.
OTHER FUNDING
* NTT Group's venture capital arm NTT Docomo Ventures Inc. on May 31 announced an investment in U.S.-based Inbenta Technologies Inc., a developer of natural language processing and semantic search engine technologies, but did not disclose the value of the investment.
* Hangzhou Dace Investment Co. Ltd. will spend 5 billion yuan to make movies and TV dramas in Chongqing, a city in southwest China, according to a May 28 People's Daily report.
* China's Tianjin Development and Reform Commission on May 16 said it launched a 100 billion yuan fund that will be used to develop technology projects including AI, robotics, virtual reality and smart cars.
* Amazon India Ltd. received a fresh investment of 26 billion Indian rupees from its parent company Amazon.com Inc. for its marketplace business, reportedly one of the largest infusions by the Seattle-based Amazon, bringing the total investment to more than 200 billion Indian rupees, The Economic Times (India) reported May 9, citing a company filing.
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