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SoftBank invests in Energy Vault; Baidu backs Zhihu

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 LP invested US$110 million in energy storage startup Energy Vault SA. SoftBank Vision Fund's investment is its first in energy storage technology and will be used to accelerate the global deployment of Energy Vault's technology. Andreas Hansson, partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the Energy Vault board as part of the investment.

* SoftBank is planning to lend up to US$20 billion to employees to invest in its second massive venture capital fund, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Executives at the company believe the strategy would give employees more accountability and show outside investors its commitment to the fund.

* Baidu Inc. and Beijing Kuaishou Technology Ltd. jointly invested US$434 million in Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed question-and-answer platform Zhihu, Caixin reported. Zhihu said it will use the funds to promote technology upgrades and product innovation as well as build its online business ecosystem.

Startup funding

* NTT Docomo Ventures Inc., the venture capital arm of NTT Docomo Inc., announced an undisclosed amount of investment in Silicon Valley startup Light Field Lab Inc., a developer of holographic display technology.

* Indonesian venture capital firm Kejora Ventures and South Korea-based InterVest Co., Ltd. made an investment in Jakarta-based tech startup PT Distribusi Voucher Nusantara Tbk, or DIVA, KrASIA reported, citing a company statement. The investment was made through the InterVest Star SEA Growth Fund I, a joint fund between Kejora and InterVest. The deal was carried out via a sales and purchase agreement with IT management company M Cash Integrasi, which sold a portion of its 12.3% shareholding in DIVA.

Capital investments

* SoftBank is in talks to lead a US$150 million to US$200 million funding round for Indian social commerce platform Meesho Inc., Mint reported. The talks are reportedly in an early stage, according to sources. However, Meesho has denied any such discussions. Meanwhile, Meesho obtained US$125 million in a financing round led by global consumer internet company, Naspers Ltd., with participation from Facebook Inc. and former Vodafone Group PLC CEO Arun Sarin.

* Uniphore Software Systems Pvt. Ltd., which designs and develops multilingual speech recognition software solutions and offers software as a service-based solution, raised US$51 million in a series C funding round led by March Capital Partners. Chiratae Ventures India Advisors Pvt. Ltd., Sistema Asia Fund Pte. Ltd. and others also took part in the funding round.

* Indian video and image-sharing app ShareChat secured US$100 million in a series D funding round led by Twitter Inc., TechCrunch.com reported, citing a company statement. The funding reportedly values the company at about US$650 million.

* Singapore-based venture capital firm East Ventures closed its sixth fund with US$75 million in total investments, which exceeds the firm's initial US$30 million target. Investors in the oversubscribed fund include Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Razer Inc. co-founder Kaling Lim, Meituan Dianping CEO Wang Xing and Temasek Holdings (Pte.) Ltd.

Other funding

* Tencent invested an additional US$80 million in Beijing-based Yijiupi, a beverage business-to-business trading platform, KrASIA reported, citing 36Kr. The Chinese conglomerate also led a 200 million yuan funding round for Beijing-based online insurance platform Xiaobangguihua, according to a separate KrASIA report, citing 36Kr.

* SoftBank is in discussions to make investments in Mexican used car platform Kavak and financial technology company Konfio Ltd. people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

* Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. will invest US$1 billion to support developers in building the Huawei ecosystem, 36Kr reported.

* Sun TV Network Ltd. is looking to invest 1.5 billion Indian rupees on its over-the-top platform Sun NXT, Television Post reported. The company will invest this amount during the next 1.5 years, according to the company's Group CFO SL Narayanan.

* Tencent and JD.com Inc. made a joint investment in Autostreets Development Ltd, a platform that sells used vehicles. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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