Blued, a popular gay dating app in China, has raised another strategic investment amounting to an eight-digit RMB funding from China’s state-run media – The Beijing News.

Specifically, the investor was Shan Shui Cong Rong Media Investment Co., an investment arm sponsored and founded by the mainstream Chinese newspaper, The Beijing News, and its president Dai Zigeng who cocurrently serves as the chairman of the media investment arm.

This also makes the Chinese gay social app’s third fundraising within 12 months and its sixth fundraising since its inception, following a previous round of US$30 million in 2015 which has valued Blued at US$300 million.

“The current financing round is more of strategic meaning given that the company is booking profits now,” said Geng Le, the CEO of Blued.

Founded in August 2010, Blued specializes in gay social media related businesses. According to Geng Le, the company had posted hundreds of millions of yuan of operating income from live streaming and mobile marketing operations in 2016, driving its domestic businesses into the black.

Besides, its male members have reached 27 million, of which 7 million log in daily, exceeding the number of daily logins in Grindr, its counterpart from the West which is banned by China’s censors.

Additionally, the gay dating app also supports 13 languages, having offices based in Vietnam, Thailand, and U.K. The firm also plans to extend into the Latin American and North American lucrative gay market in the future.

Having signed a strategic cooperation agreement last December with Hornet, Blued will also have access to Hornet’s 15 million users and three million monthly active users all around the globe.

“A further increase in operating income is expected for the live streaming business in 2017, and value-added membership services, games, and healthcare services will be further developed as a new revenue growth drivers,” Geng further adds.

Born out of LGBT NGO Danlan.org, Chinese for “light blue”, Blued has been active in improving the living status of the LGBT group.

“In the past, people wouldn’t even talk about homosexuality because they thought it was dirty, it was filthy,” Geng said. “The internet can help support gay lifestyles, to make people know they are not alone and that their feelings are genuine.”

“Moreover, the homosexual minority is still a highly controversial group, we need a proper channel to talk with the government and the public, letting them know what we are doing and what problems we can solve for society,” he further adds.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Freshket, a workflow-integrated marketplace for fresh food suppliers and restaurant, has recently raised its seed funding round, which is worth a six-digit sum in dollars from 500 TukTuks and an undisclosed corporate venture capital fund, which is said to be one of the leading agricultural firms in Thailand.

Launched in August 2016, Freshket’s concept is to create an e-marketplace to connect fresh food suppliers and restaurants, providing a workflow system that facilitates dealings between the two, making it easier and more efficient.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Freshket, Ponglada Paniangwet was also previously a fresh food supplier, spending four hours every night to fill out order forms from only ten customers. “In such a way, I realized that it was difficult to grow the business,” she said.

A vague idea to solve the suppliers’ problem was formed, later leading her to join and win DTAC Accelerate Programme last year as well as receiving funding from two investors.

Before launching the platform, Paniangwet also tested the market by introducing Freshket on Facebook which ended with the registration of 500 restaurants and 100 suppliers within 48 hours.

With the latest proceeding, the business-to-business (B2B) online marketplace plans to develop the platform which was soft launched in January.

As of January 10, Freshket had 20 suppliers with 2,000 items and 50 restaurants on the platform. By year-end, it targets to have around 800 restaurants and 250 suppliers.

“We will focus on expanding the market in Bangkok and big cities in Thailand this year. Then, if everything is on track, we may foray into Vietnam and Indonesia as the next destinations,” she said.

She further added that the site, over the next six months, plans to partner with third-party logistics provider to facilitate small-sized suppliers who do not have their own logistics.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Genecast, a Beijing-based cancer diagnosis and therapy startup has recently raised a RMB128 million (about US$18 million) series B round led by THG Ventures, a capital arm of Tsinghua Holdings.

Other investors including Suzhou-based Cowin Venture, BW Ventures, Loyal Valley Innovation Capital, and Yahui Precise Medical also participated in the round.

Founded in November 2014, Genecast provides tumour DNA testing and gene-based medicine guidance, targeting lung cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, and breast cancer. At present, the sample volume that the startup processes has exceeded 10,000 pieces.

Its medical services are used in more than 200 hospitals in China, and the company has also forged partnerships with various hospitals and universities including the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and Beijing Cancer Hospital.

This financing round follows an undisclosed angel round from Cowin Venture, and a series A round worth RMB20 million (about US$3 million) from PE firm Yifuze Equity Investment Fund.

With the latest capital, Genecast plans to focus on research and clinical trials, as well as expanding distribution channels.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Botworx.ai, a platfrom for authentic conversational commerce, has raised US$3 million in seed investment led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from SV Angel.

Commenting on the investment, Neill Occhiogrosso, a partner at Costanoa Ventures said, “Botworx.ai is building an end-to-end platform that allows businesses to message directly with consumers instantly without having to open a separate app. This will change the way businesses engage with their customers, allowing every interaction to be personalised and one-to-one.”

With the latest proceeds, the California-based company will continue to build out its platform, enabling brands to easily and affordably acquire, engage and transact with consumers through popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and iMessage.

Founded in 2016 by Mahi de Silva, Manoj Malhotra, Mark Fruehan, and Arvind Gupta, Bortworx.ai is an artificial intelligence-powered platform that help brands engage with their clients and drive conversions.

The platform features full lifecycle management and analytics, an AI-powered natural language engine and security features. The company’s team spans Europe, Asia and Latin America. It has made chatbots for Telangana Today, NewsMobile.in, and others.

De Silva, Malhotra, and Fruehan are also co-founders of AdMarvel, which rebranded as Opera Mediworks, the third largest mobile advertising company in the world. Prior to founding AdMarvel, the team built the messaging and content business at VeriSign.

Built on their success of automating the purchasing and selling of mobile advertising, Botworx’s leadership team is now focused on building a bot creation and management platform. It will allow brands to use their chatbots and messaging services for acquiring customers, as well as customer service and retention.

Speaking on Bortworx, Mahi de Silva, the company’s CEO said, “Chatbot technology is a leapfrog opportunity for brands to elevate ephermal digital marketing campaigns into engaging and long-lived conversations with consumers.”

“Despite all of the technological innovation,” Mahi further adds, “marketing is still done one campaign at a time, where brands have very limited access to audience profile and engagement data. We’re building Botworx.ai to give brands greater power to acquire customers, engage them with content and monetise the engagement.”

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media

Agribuddy, a startup that helps farmers in Cambodia and other emerging countries, announced on Wednesday, that it has received a fundraising worth US$730,000 from iSGS Investment Works, Yorihiko Kato, in addition with several corporations, funds, and individual investors.

With the latest capital, the company plans to further develop products and systems currently under development as well as to acquire top talents who can play an active part in the world market.

Founded in 2015, Agribuddy offers a mobile application of the same name that provides rural farmers with asset management support services. By registering as users, farmers can input their farmland and crops allowing the app to automatically calculate income and expenditure patterns, as well as timing and money amounts.

Additionally, Agribuddy’s also provides its own credit scoring function to act as a service that sets credit limits from banks and other financial institutions for purchasing agricultural material, such as fertilizers from cooperating retailers.

Besides, Agribuddy also creates collective intelligence by connecting farmers with agricultural traders and retailers, providing them sufficient information resources such as the updated prices of crops.

To date, the cumulative agricultural area registered under Agribuddy has reached just under 190,000 hectares, consisting users mainly in Cambodia, as well as users in neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, India and more.

According to Agribuddy, this is largely due to the Buddies stationed in each rural village, making it possible to reach out and collect data from potential users who are not connected to the Internet.

Agribuddy also won the Nikkei FinTech Conference Pitch Competition held in Tokyo last June.

By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media