Mobile compression software startup AdStringO is reportedly in talks with multiple venture funds to raise US$5 million in its Series A financing round which is expected to close by April.

The proceeds from this round are intended to fund the company’s international expansion and to cash in on the cooperative banks’ need to facilitate digital transactions.

“We want to expand aggressively to other countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and some countries in Africa, and also cater to the cooperative banks sector which has been greatly impacted by the government’s demonetisation since they lack any sort of technology infrastructure to support digital transactions,” said Mohan Chandrasekaran, the CEO of AdStringO.

Co-founded in September 2014 by Chandrasekaran and Sankar Mahalingam, AdStringO uses a technology which compresses images, PDF, audio and videos up to 1/10th of the file size, that is up to 90 percent with the same visual quality.

The AdStringO’s compression software is especially helpful to field representatives or customers themselves to capture, documents, images, and videos using scanners, webcams and mobile phones, then to compress them without losing aspect ratio and metadata to initiate business processes at the transaction point itself.

Its portfolio includes customers including Tata Group, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Kotak, IDBI Federal, Pidilite, Johnson-Johnson, OEC, Videocon, ICICI Prudential, and Bria Sun Life Insurance among some.

Commenting on the fundraising, Chandrasekaran said that, “We are in the last stages of signing up a couple of large cooperative banks to enable them to provide services to customers such as opening loan accounts using mobile technology without incurring costs on opening new bank accounts.”

This fundraising follows AdStringO’s angel round in June 2015 whereby the Mumbai-based startup has raised US$350,000 from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Tokyo-based Coiney, a mobile payments startup, announced today that it has completed an 800 million yen funding from SBI Investment, Dentsu Digital Holdings (DDH), and existing shareholder Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), as well as an investment loan from Seibu Shinkin Bank.

The company will use the latest proceedings for talent acquisition, to recruit more engineers as well as to strengthen their sales and marketing team for expanding their payments solution and services – Coiney Terminal, Coiney Payge and Coiney Engine.

Launched in October 2012, before Square set foot in Japan, Coiney is a startup providing credit card payment devices whereby merchants can collect customers’ credit card payments via the pairing of Coiney with a smartphone.

Its flagship product, Coiney Terminal is a palm-sized gadget that facilitates smartphone-based payments solution for real stores. It works with smartphones via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and is also compatible with IC cards.

Coiney Payge, on the other hand, is a web-based payments solution for online transactions, in addition to Coiney Engine, a tool which offers a credibility evaluation of business enterprises via artificial intelligence based on the accumulation of payments history and various statistical data collected from Coiney Terminal and Coiney Payge services.

“Initially, we thought that Coiney would spread among areas which facilitate small C2C payments, such as in the realms of the farmers market, beauty products, and restaurants among some, as it seems to be more convenient to settle a transaction via smartphone,” said the President of Coiney, Naoko Samata. “But the results were not as expected. At that time, it actually did not spread much.”

“Therefore, we changed directions, and expanded our services to facilitate larger transactions, focusing mainly in areas including medical hospitals and used-car dealership among some and it turned to be victorious.” She further adds.

On August 2013, Coiney raised over US$5 million from Credit Saison, a leading credit company in Japan. While on October 2013, Coiney raised US$8 million from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan.

At present, Coiney has a business partnership with Seibu Shinkin Bank via Credit Saison and it will continue to seek more collaborations with other local financial institutions.

Speaking on the future of Coiney, Samata also notes that “The present business model was implemented from 5 years ago. Until now, it is still said that we are moving towards a cashless world, but chances are we might even be moving towards an “empty-handed society” where there will be no cards or even smartphones in the future. If that were to be true, Coiney would continue to develop new services as well.”

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Clodura Systems Pvt. Ltd, an automated lead generation startup based in Pune, India has recently raised an undisclosed amount of investment from a high-net-worth individual (HNI).

The investment was made by individual investor Ajay Dubey, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, who has 36 years of experience working with IT firms such as Infosys, Patni Computer Systems, Persistent Systems and Uniken.

Founded in 2016 by Kapil Khangaokar who previously worked with IT firms such as Calsoft, Clodura acts as an automated LeadGen platform which finds leads for business to business (B2B) services companies using machine learning.

Clodura collects data from over 80 paid and unpaid sources and analyses them to understand the strategic direction taken by each company. Its core machine learning algorithm then find high-value prospects to close.

That is as a sales assistant, Clodura helps managers to spot more customers and facilitates faster conversion of deals. It provides end to end information and solution that a salesperson need to close the deal.

The startup listed 8 customers among which includes Clarion Technologies, Cybage, Landmark, Exceptionaire Technologies, Calsoft, Faichi, Ryussi and Harbinger Group.

“We are aiming to have more than 40 customers by April 2017, and then go for a Series A funding round,” said Khangaokar.

The startup will use the funding for product development as well as sales and marketing.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Toge Productions, an Indonesian Indie game developer studio, announced on Tuesday that it has received an undisclosed funding from Discovery Nusantara Capital (DNC), the investment arm of China-based game company Zhexin IT Co.

With this investment, the early-stage funding will be used to accelerate growth, helping to develop and bring forth quality games from Indonesia to the global market, according to Toge’s CEO Kris Antoni in a press statement.

Speaking on the investment, Kris Antoni also said, “Investment from DNC is not only limited to money but also includes other strategic aspects namely network connection to the international games industry.”

Because established in 2010, DNC’s parent company, Zhexin IT is a game maker firm employing more than 260 workers and has a market capitalization of US$4 billion. Its shareholder is Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture, which announced a partnership with Project Discovery Ltd to create DNC.

Prior to this, DNC, in 2016 also invested in the series D funding round of an Indonesian mobile game developer Touchten, which is known for its games including Target Acquired, Warung Chain: Go Food Express, and Rapstronaut.

Focusing on supporting the growth of Southeast Asian gaming industry, DNC finances and transfers knowledge and resources to companies in the region. It operates a US$10 million fund to invest in games companies in Southeast Asia with a particular focus on Indonesia.

“When we look at the Indonesian market, we see many players that are just like the way we were in 2010,” Irene Umar of DNC said. “So we would like to help these players grow, not only by giving funds, but also by transferring accumulated knowledge, experience, and resources for fellow gaming industry players. Through DNC, we want to create a positive impact in Indonesian gaming industry.”

Founded in 2010, Toge Production’ portfolio ranges from web games to mobile and desktop games, including PC and Mac. The company primarily focuses on building premium instead of free-to-play mobile games.

Among some of its most popular works is Infectonator, which had won the Best Desktop Game award at the Indie Prize Casual Connect Asia 2014. With the funding, Antoni states that it will undoubtedly help Toge strengthen its foothold in the Indonesian game industry.

“Toge generates profit every year and last year was the best year for us. Financially, Toge is still in the green zone and there is no compulsion to seek immediate funding. Toge productions, on the contrary, invests in Mojiken Studio not too long ago in a time where many startups struggle to find investment,” Antoni said.

Additionally, Toge Productions plan to expand their support for Indonesia’s game industry ecosystem through collaboration programmes.

“We want to change the world’s perception that Indonesia is only a market of consumers. We want Indonesia to be recognized as a country that produces world-class games,” he added.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Indonesia’s financial e-commerce provider, Cermati on February 2 announced that it has raised a seven-digit USD funding from Orange Growth Capital (OGC), a venture capital firm focused on fintech.

This investment by Orange Growth Capital, a European fintech VC and backer of peer-to-peer platform Zopa and online trading platform BUX follows as an extension to the Series A round previously announced in September 2016, which was led by East Ventures with the participation of Beenos Plaza.

Additionally, Cermati will also become OGC’s first investment portfolio in Asia, adding to the 12 portfolios which are all running in the field of finance such as loans, fraud prevention, investment payments to insurance among some. Established in 2013, the VC firm has three offices located in Amsterdam, London, and Singapore.

This latest round also sees Hams de Back, a partner at Orange Growth Capital joining Cermati’s board. Speaking on the investment, Hans de Back said, “We are delighted to invest in Cermati and to partner with Andhy and the team. This business has a great growth potential as Indonesia is the largest market in Southeast Asia.”

“In Indonesia, there is growing disposable income amongst the population and a regulator supportive of the growth of the financial services industry, where today there are only at approximately 36 percent of Indonesians that are customers of financial institutions. We are looking forward to working with Cermati to build a top tier financial e-commerce portal in Indonesia,” he added.

Founded in April 2015, Cermati is an online platform that helps customers research and acquires financial products, such as credit cards, auto loans, personal loans, and mortgages. It claims to have become the most visited financial e-commerce site in Indonesia, posting 3.2 million monthly visits in December 2016 and facilitating over IDR 100 billion worth of consumer loans in 2016.

Oby Sumampouw, the CTO and co­founder of Cermati, said: “We are focused on building a financial technology platform to provide the most streamline and easy to use experience for Indonesians to discover and get financial products.”

The latest investment will be used for product development and further technical enhancements, to improve the state-of-the-art technology, data science as well as analytical tools. Besides, the firm will also be opening more opportunities for tech talents to join their company.

Speaking on the investment, Andhy Koesnandar, the CEO and co­founder of Cermati said, “We are very pleased to partner with OGC, which brings deep experience in building FinTech businesses. We look forward to capitalizing on OGC’s experience in Indonesian market opportunities. This investment will accelerate our progress to achieve our mission of making financial products more accessible to many more Indonesians.”

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media