Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

How Viber empowers advertisers to have two-way conversations with one billion people around the world

mixpanel.com/blog/2018/06/20/...ng-platforms-for-advertisers/

BlueVine Raises $60 Million in Series E Funding led by Menlo Ventures
Fintech leader looks to expand financing to small and medium-sized businesses

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BlueVine today announced that it has closed $60 million in equity funding, underscoring the fintech pioneer's momentum in the alternative business lending market.

The Series E funding round was led by Menlo Ventures, and includes new investors, such as SVB Capital. All major existing investors also participated.

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/...o-ventures-300659423.html

LAST ROUND VALUATION ESTIMATE
750.00m USD
www.funderbeam.com/startups/bluevine?ref=teleport

Rakuten Signs Exclusive Strategic Partnership with RapidAPI to Launch an API Marketplace for Japan and Asia Pacific

Tokyo, July 11, 2018 - Rakuten, Inc. today announced that it has signed an exclusive strategic partnership with San Francisco-based startup RapidAPI, operated by R Software Inc., to launch a new API (Application Program Interface) marketplace service called Rakuten RapidAPI. The API marketplace, launching today, will provide software developers in Japan and Asia unified access to over 8,000 APIs with localized documentation and resources in Japanese and English.

global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2018/0711_01.html

“We double every year and we have brought out our next generation of software. We are core to the whole digital upgrade of the financial world. Our volumes grew by over 100 percent, customers over 100 percent, employees by 50 percent. As you walk around the office you can see there is nowhere to sit any more.”

You can’t go online and move money across borders with Currency Cloud. Somewhat like the “Ubtek Inside” marketing, Currency Cloud is embedded in companies that work internationally and need to accept payments, pay suppliers or deliver salaries to employees in multiple currencies.

www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2016/...loud/#3c685bf56939

www.netguru.co/blog/...f-fintech-2018-barometer-earning-calls

letzten Posting:

"Fintech is becoming a major pillar of our business. And at a very rapid speed, the company is driving the growth of our company. These are the words of Masayuki Hosaka, vice chairman at Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant that is trying to transform the insurance industry and itself. In Q1 2018, that transition translated into 14% higher consolidated revenue year-on-year. Fintech business drove this growth."

Rakuten Group's fintech revenue from 1st quarter 2010 to 1st quarter 2018 (in billion Japanese yen)

Q1/12: 34,86
Q2/12: 37,48
Q3/12: 37,99
Q4/12: 37,6
Q1/13: 46,17
Q2/13: 51,7
Q3/13: 49,88
Q4/13: 53,75
Q1/14: 54,39
Q2/14: 56.75
Q3/14: 60,67
Q4/14: 64,71
Q1/15: 65,46
Q2/15: 69,58
Q3/15: 69,34
Q4/15: 70,76
Q1/16: 71,5
Q2/16: 74,2
Q3/16: 73
Q4/16: 77,3
Q1/17: 78
Q2/17: 82,1
Q3/17: 83,7
Q4/17: 89,4
Q1/18: 90

www.statista.com/statistics/223360/...internet-finance-sales/

Stuhle gehauen",  denn ich hatte bei Lyft bisher 12% geschätzt und bei Cabify 30% - offensichtlich wiegen die frühen Einsteige stäker, als sich das bisher eingeschätzt habe.

"The Japanese behemoth holds a stake in both Lyft (20 percent) and Cabify (40 percent) and would supposedly be happy to see them merge.

We've reached out to Cabify and Lyft and will update the story with their comments as we receive them."

tech.eu/brief/...-talks-with-lyft-looking-for-up-to-3-billion/

US-Dollar wert.

Lyft valuation hits $15.1 billion after fresh $600 million in funding
Kirsten Korosec@kirstenkorosec / Jun 27, 2018
Comment

Lyft has raised an additional $600 million in a Series I financing round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, pushing its post-money valuation to $15.1 billion. The company’s value has more than doubled in the past 14 months.

Senator Investment Group LP joined Fidelity in the capital raise. Fidelity has poured more than $800 million into the ride-hailing company, making it one of Lyft’s largest investors.

techcrunch.com/2018/06/27/...llion-600-million-funding-round/

FRIDAY, 13 JULY, 2018 | 08:02 WIB
Online Taxi App GoJek Expands to Four Southeast Asian Countries
Zoom Out Zoom In Normal
TEMPO.CO, Surabaya - Indonesian application-based ride-hailing company GoJek confirmed that it will expand to four Southeast Asian countries, namely Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.  
GoJek Indonesia corporate communication Vice President Michael Say explained that the company’s brand name for the Vietnam market will change to 'GoViet', while Thailand will take the name 'Get'.
“As for the two remaining countries; Singapore and Philippines, have yet to announce the name of the service. We will hold a soft launching for the two countries,” said Michael on Thursday, July 12.
en.tempo.co/read/news/2018/07/13/...Southeast-Asian-Countries

The investors in this huge new Go-Jek round are KKR, Warburg Pincus, Farallon Capital, Capital Group Private Markets, “as well as existing shareholders and other international investors,” says today’s statement. It also reveals for the first time that Rakuten Ventures was among prior investors.

www.techinasia.com/go-jek-550-million-funding

blog.dealroom.co/...michaud-co-founder-of-delivery-app-glovo/

könnte noch einmal eine Milliarde US-Dollar hinzukommen.

von Carousell bei der letzten Finanzierungsrund auch über eine Milliarde US-Dollar, und zwar 1,06 Milliarden US-Dollar.

www.funderbeam.com/startups/carousell?ref=teleport

by Tariq Ahmed Saeedi
in Real Estate
09 Jul 2018

In Japan, Rakuten Lifull Stay Inc. has formed a business alliance with fintech company  Samurai & J Partners Corporation to finance or crowdfund the development of rental properties.

According to a news statement, the partnership aims to develop private housing units owned by individuals or realtors registered with Rakuten Stay — a housing management system.

Established in Mar. last year, startup Rakuten Lifull Stay Inc. is co-owned by Rakuten Inc. (51 percent) and Lifull Co. Ltd. (49 percent). The company started listing its holiday accommodation on vacation rental marketplace VacationStay and  MonthlyHomes recently; after a new law that allows landlords to privately rent their properties as short-term accommodations came into effect in June.

aimgroup.com/2018/07/09/...stay-inc-offers-financing-support/

Messaging apps are big business and many of them have moved into providing far more services for users beyond traditional peer-to-peer messaging, such as chatbots and banking services. This move from messaging apps into becoming the Swiss army knives of the app market has seen the number of app users grow to around 2.01bn and is expected to reach 2.48bn by 2021, according to Statista.
One app that reaches a large number of those using messaging apps globally is Viber. The cross-platform, community-focused instant messaging platform boasts over 1bn users and is the most used messaging app in Russia, as well as being hugely popular in the Middle East.

“If you look at industry level, messaging apps are becoming the latest browser. And you see, on average, that users are using four or five messaging apps, which means there is room for everybody,” says Cristina Constandache, VP of global partnerships at Rakuten Viber. “Where Viber is going is creating a sense of community and creating an engagement around people – whether they know each other or not – that have the same passion, the same goal, the same interest.”

mobilemarketingmagazine.com/...ties-ads-data-privacy-chatbots

Micro Deposit Organization (MDO) IMON International is the first in Tajikistan to launch the Viber chatbot.  Using bot IMON International’s customers can get information about products and services offered by this microfinance institution and carry out basic financial transactions in social network interface.

Thus, in order to know the currency exchange rate, get information about products and services, lodge application for loan or to get remittance IMON International’s customers just have to install Viber program on their smartphones or tablet PC and got to the bot page: viber://pa?chatURI=imon-international (this link is only for mobile version of Viber).  

IMON International is a deposit-taking microfinance institution (MFI) offering individual and solidarity group loans to micro-entrepreneurs in urban and rural Tajikistan.  

Read more: news.tj/en/news/tajikistan/economic/...to-launch-viber-chatbot

channel?

Mrkva chatbot is available on three different platforms: Viber, Messenger and their own website. If you’re wondering which channel performs best, here’s your answer: 99.91% of chatbot subscriptions took place on Viber, only 0.07% on Messenger and 0.03% on their website.

However, this makes perfect sense if we take into consideration the sticker pack on Viber vs. no promotion on Messenger.

www.clickattack.com/food-order-chatbot-mrkva/

equityzen.com/path-to-ipo/lyft/

Non-life insurer Asahi Fire, which was established in 1951, had 515 employees and group revenue of JPY 99.24 billion, as of March 2017.

zephyr.bvdinfo.com/version-2018627/...9&product=zephyrneo

Da kommt ein Umsatz von ca. einer Milliarde US-Dollar bei Rakuten hinzu.

zephyr.bvdinfo.com/version-2018627/...9&product=zephyrneo

In announcing the tender offer for Asahi Fire & Marine, Rakuten said that it had been considering a move into the non-life insurance sector for a year and first approached the company in September last year.

Of course, China’s ZhongAn has blazed the trail in Asia. Its relationship with Alibaba, its biggest shareholder, has allowed it to sell millions of small policies to Chinese e-commerce customers and Rakuten will aim to replicate that success.

However, most of ZhongAn’s success was initially based on selling very simple shipping insurance policies. Rakuten is aiming to be more innovative in the way that it designs policies, so it will be interesting to see how the business develops during the next few years.

As tech firms increasingly look to monetise their customer bases, it is inevitable that they will become much bigger and more serious competitors in the insurance and financial services sectors. Watch this space.

insuranceasianews.com/rakuten-takes-on-japans-big-three/

“Integrations that we are excited about are the likes of banks, utilities companies, the likes of FC Barcelona, and Shakira where you’re offering the users exclusive content that they can’t find anywhere else but on Viber, and you’re giving them a channel that they can chat in real-time with people that they follow – be it singers or athletes,” says Constandache.

“It’s more about finding the middle ground between utility and marketing, but the most important part remains the utility. It’s really the user engagement that is driving all our partnerships.”

Looking ahead, Viber will look to continue with its focus on user engagement and continue to dive even deeper into ways for users to engage – whether that be with brand chatbots powered by partnerships with companies like Sprinklr, or with each other through social gaming powered by Gamee.