SoftBank’s move into new services continues with plan for a payment service in Japan

SoftBank is best known in Japan as a mobile operator but the company, which is behind the near-$100 billion Vision Fund, is increasingly getting into other types of consumer services in its homeland. The Japanese firm last month launched a parking app, it is in the midst of rolling out a taxi-hailing service in conjunction […]

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Tencent leads $50M investment in NewsDog, an app vying to be India’s Toutiao

The growth of China’s Bytedance, an ambitious $30 billion tech firm, and its highly-addictive Toutiao news aggregator app has set off a search for services with similar growth potential across the world. India, second in population only to China with rapidly-growing internet access, is an obvious place to look, and would-be pretender to the Toutiao […]

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SoftBank leads $450M investment in Paytm’s e-commerce business

SoftBank is at it again giving money companies that rival startups it has already invested in. The Japanese firm and its long-time ally (and existing Paytm backer) Alibaba have come together to invest $450 million more into Paytm’s e-commerce business, Paytm Mall, as first reported by Mint. The deal is said to value the business at $1.6-$2 […]

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Paytm brings messaging features to India’s top digital wallet app

 Paytm, India’s top digital wallet and payment service, has introduced a chat feature to amp up its appeal among an increasingly competitive market. The new ‘Inbox’ feature, which was first outed in August, is initially available on Android, which accounts for the bulk of Paytm’s claimed 200 million users, and not iOS. It allows users to share messages and photos like… Read More

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