Appointment of Kim Rassou as Senior Executive leading Client and Strategy
Boutique investment firm BCI, a subsidiary of the global financial services provider Apex Group, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kim Rassou as Senior Executive leading Client and Strategy. Kim’s appointment aims to strengthen BCI as it maintains its commitment to providing own-brand and co-branded CIS portfolios to wealth
Read moreBusiness travel management platform TravelPerk raises $104M
TravelPerk, a business travel management platform targeted at SMEs, has raised $104 million in a fresh equity-based round of financing led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Existing investors including Kinnevik and Felix Capital also participated in the round. The funding gives TravelPerk a valuation of $1.4 billion, just a fraction
Read moreApple will pay artists more to have a spatial audio version on Apple Music
Apple will pay additional royalties starting this month to artists if they have a spatial audio version on Apple Music, according to multiple reports. The company will pay up to 10% additional royalty if an artist has all their songs in spatial audio, per a report by 9to5Mac. The extra
Read moreChina quietly pulls draft gaming rules from website
Beijing has quietly pulled the proposed curbs on the video game industry from the official website, weeks after the draft guidelines wiped tens of billions of dollars off the market value of local titans. The link to the draft rules was no longer accessible as of this morning, as first
Read moreSIM card swap led to takeover of SEC’s X account
The hacker who took over the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s account on the X social media platform this month did it by fooling a cellphone carrier into giving it control over an employee’s cellphone in a SIM card swap. Access to the account, the regulator, added, wasn’t protected by
Read moreEmail subscription changes
I will soon be discontinuing the email subscription option for this blog. I recommend that email subscribers switch over to subscribing to the RSS feed for the blog. If you’re unfamiliar with RSS, here is an article on how to get started. (I recommend RSS in general, and not just
Read moreAC Ventures closes its new $210M Indonesia-focused fund
In the middle of a long funding winter, AC Ventures’ latest news will give Southeast Asian startups hope. The Jakarta, Indonesia–based venture firm announced today it has raised $210 million, finishing the final close on its fifth fund, called ACV Fund V. Limited partners include the World’s Bank’s IFC and
Read morePlural, the VC led by founders, pulls together a new $432M fund to back European startups
European VC Plural has carved out a reputation for itself as one of the few VC’s in the region started and led by entrepreneurs who grew their own startups, with its founders including Taaavet Hinrikus from Transferwise/Wise; Sten Tamkivi; and Ian Hogarth, the founder of Songkick who more recently has
Read moreA SIM-swapping attack was behind the SEC’s fake Bitcoin post
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency’s price to spike. In
Read moreWhy Elon Musk needs MrBeast
Image: MrBeast Exactly how much money can you make by uploading a video to X? The going assumption has been that X — like Twitter before it — is a poor platform for video creators that can’t compete with YouTube and TikTok in terms of monetization and reach. So there’s
Read more