Tokyo-Headquartered TechnoPro Group Acquires Robosoft for $108 Million

India-headquartered digital transformation pioneer Robosoft has been acquired by Japan’s TechnoPro Group for a reported $108 million. Headquartered in Tokyo, TechPro specializes in IT, engineering, and R&D.

“Robosoft has had a phenomenal journey over the last two decades and has grown by leaps and bounds during this period. The partnership with Ascent Capital and Kalaari Capital heralded a strong growth era for us and I am very happy that we are handing over the reins of the Company to a global player like TechnoPro,” said Rohith Bhat, Founder of Robosoft, in a press release.

TechnoPro Group is one of Japan’s largest technology solutions group with more than 20,000 engineers and researchers in its payroll. The company provides support for technical development and R&D to 2,000 companies including major corporations, universities, and research organizations.

“We look forward to a close collaboration with Robosoft in the company’s next phase of growth and see tremendous synergies between TechnoPro and Robosoft,” said Takeshi Yagi, President, Representative Director and CEO, TechnoPro.

Founded in 1996, Robosoft has worked with the largest firms of the world. Its first client was famously Apple. Today, Robosoft counts media network Viacom and McDonald’s India as its clients.

This partnership with TechnoPro will provide Robosoft with new opportunities to grow in Japan. It will also help it expand in its core markets of US, Europe and India.

 

Huawei Unveils Its Plan to Commit $100Mfor Startups in APAC

At the inaugural HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit that took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong, Huawei has announced that it will be investing $100 million on the startup ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region for the next three years. This investment will go towards its Spark Program in the Asia Pacific region, which aims to build a sustainable startup ecosystem.

Huawei also announced that this program will focus on developing startup ecosystem in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The company aims to recruit a total of 1,000 startups into the Spark accelerator program and is looking to shape 100 of them into scaleups.

“Startups and SMEs are the innovators, disruptors, and pioneers of our times. 34 years ago, Huawei was a startup with just 5,000 dollars of registered capital. Recently, we have been thinking: How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more startups address their challenges? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by digital transformation, achieve business success, and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world,” said Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member Catherine Chen.

Last year, Huawei launched the Spark Program in Asia Pacific to work with local governments, well-known VC firms, leading incubators, and top universities to build support platforms for startups. Currently, 40 startups are participating in this program.

 

Neobanking Startup Jupiter Raises $44M in Series B

Neobanking startup Jupiter is now valued at $300 million after it raised $44 million in its Series B round. The round was led by Brazil-based Nubank, Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, and Global Founders Capital. Mirae Assets Venture also joined the round. Existing investors Tanglin VC, 314 Capital, Beenext, Greyhound, and Addition Ventures participated in the round.

Jupiter was founded in 2019 and was established as a neobank for the consumers in India. Earlier, Jupiter had raised $25 million in seed funding and Series A rounds. With the latest funding round, Jupiter has more than doubled its valuation.

The latest funding will be used by the 100% digital bank to recruit talent and scale up its business.

“Nubank and Jupiter share the mission of making banking the best experience possible for our customers, putting an end to all the bureaucracy and the pain in the current system. The Indian and Brazilian markets have many similarities and through this investment, we aim to support Jupiter in their growth path. We see a lot of potential and are excited about joining them so early on their journey,” said David Vélez, founder and chief executive of Nubank, in a statement.

Jupiter was founded by the industry-veteran Jitendra Gupta who wants to solve India’s inflexible traditional banking system.

 

Black & Veatch is joining hands with Big Blue to work on AI-driven solutions

Black & Veatch, an engineering and construction company from Kansas, has recently made an announcement that it is partnering with the Big Blue IBM to market APM solutions. This also includes remote monitoring techs that make use of real-time data analytics with AI to help consumers maintain their assets and equipment. By using the marketed solutions, customers can keep their assets at peak performance and reliability. The main motto of the recent collaboration is to combine IBM’s Maximo App Suite with Black & Veatch’s AMS services. These solutions are expected to help organizations support more demanding operations for energy, utilities, and industrial assets.

 Black & Veatch is well-known for its four diagnostics and monitoring centers used for real-time analysis and detection of upcoming issues by running many scenarios and models to accurately predict the changes in asset performance. IBM application’s Monitor, Predict, Assist, Visual, and Health inspection capabilities will combine with Black & Veatch’s diagnostics and monitoring capabilities to bring them on to a field where the gathered insights can be applied. Dave Brill, Black & Veatch’s VP of Asset Management Services, has stated that digital twins are an integral part of the industrial segment’s digital future. This is mainly because they can provide a brief understanding of complex assets.

 

Google Unveils its New Tensor Chipset to Power Pixel 6 phones

 

In a recent press meet, Google has announced that it has made its own SoC to power the AI and machine learning (ML) process for its upcoming Pixel 6 series phone. The all-new Google Tensor chipset will be used in both Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones. The tech giant has been working for over five years to build the Tensor chipset and the company's CEO, Sundar Pichai. This new chipset will increase Google's computing abilities.

Google has made this chip to process the necessary AI features for videos and photos efficiently. It will enable the company to bring innovative AI and ML technologies to its end users. Besides, Google is aiming to provide a more personalized experience with its Pixel phone series so that every Pixel device feels unique. Be it the AI-enabled solutions, features, suggestions, color themes, photography, or voice commands.

With the new Tensor chipset backed by robust and innovative AI and ML capabilities, Google aims to provide a truly personalized smartphone. The new chipset not just contains computing resources. It will also include the latest technologies based on AI-based algorithms to unlock the specific experiences for all the Pixel users.

 

Microsoft Unveils Its First Beta Version for Windows 11

Microsoft has released the first beta of Windows 11, and this version will be available for those who have enrolled in its Windows Insider Program. Until today, getting access to Windows 11 was tedious as the users had to install the Dev Preview, which Microsoft says is meant for "highly technical users" as it has rough edges. According to Microsoft, the beta release is less volatile, with builds being validated by Microsoft.

To install the beta version, you will need a compatible computer. The hardware will work with the next version of Windows. The company has said that it will be paying close attention to how well the 7th Gen Intel and AMD Zen 1 CPUs will be working during the testing period so that it will be possible t to run the beta on those computers. The beta release is good news for those who have installed the Dev preview as it helps them get their hands on Windows 11 as soon as possible.

For those who are still running Windows 10 but want to join the beta, you can register for Microsoft's beta program on its official website. Microsoft says that the Beta Channel releases are highly stable than Dev Channel. And it is comparatively easy to switch to the latest Beta channel as it only requires a quick reboot.

 

eCloudvalley Achieves AWS Machine Learning Competency

eCloudvalley Technology has become the very first Amazon Web Services (AWS) Consulting Partner from ASEAN to achieve the AWS Machine Learning Competency status. This means that eCloudvalley Technology is AWS certified when it comes to offering a range of services and technologies to help businesses create intelligent solutions, from enabling data science workflows to enhancing applications with ML.

Achieving AWS Machine Learning Competency will help eCloudvalley serve a growing market in the Asia Pacific region looking to automate operations. The company has so far helped mobile advertising solutions and content developer PureTech Global to leverage AI to optimize their billing revenue by implementing a time-series forecasting model using Amazon Forecast, a fully managed service that uses machine learning to deliver highly accurate forecasts, to predict the optimal times for sending renewal notices for each of PureTech’s applications. “We have benefited from the support received from AWS and eCloudvalley, and continue to benefit from AWS’s advanced cloud capabilities like machine learning,” said John Lim, Chief Technology Officer, PureTech Global.

“We are delighted that eCloudvalley is the first AWS Consulting partner in ASEAN to achieve this competency. We look forward to innovating together and continuing to serve our customers in Southeast Asia with innovative and validated AWS Partner technology and consulting offerings,” said Conor McNamara, Managing Director, AWS ASEAN.

 

Influencers Can Now Showcase Their Brands and Sell Products Online With PopBox

AnyMind Group has announced the launch of PopBox, an online retail store for influencers where they can showcase and sell their own brand and products. Currently, PopBox is being made available in Thailand and Japan.

Apart from being a great platform for the influencers, PopBox will also enable the consumers to discover and purchase a wide variety of products from influencer brands. AnyMind Group has said that it will make PopBox available in other Asian markets soon.

Thai influencer brands 11am Shop by MayyR and Land of N by Nisamanee Nutt, and Japanese influencers such as Kanockstar and Mukuena have already listed on PopBox. Although these merchants are currently part of the AnyCreator influencer network, AnyMind has plans to open PopBox up to any influencer in near future.

“Since the start, we have constantly developed new products and business models and we can now provide platforms that form the next-generation business infrastructure for the digital economy, similar to a super app for running a business. PopBox adds to our vast amount of offerings for influencers and content creators that span content monetization and distribution, brand collaborations and the creation of influencer brands,” said Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group.

 

 

Alphaus Makes an Entry into Southeast Asia

Cloud Financial Management company Alphaus has made an entry into Singapore. The company plans to provide its suite of cloud financial management solutions to the fast-growing MSP Cloud Comrade in Singapore.

This move into Singapore will mark its journey of expansion in the Asia-Pacific region where it plans to pioneer in simplifying billing/spend management and tackling cloud waste for companies. Its SaaS products serve it as a catalyst to faster, greater, and better adoption and use of the cloud.

“The SaaS solutions from Alphaus for billing management and cloud cost optimization provide us with the requisite tools, information, and intelligence to achieve these seamlessly. These tools are integral to our operations and in use 24/7. Alphaus’ Wave and Ripple go a long way in helping maximize ROI, one of the key value propositions for moving to the cloud,” said Andy Waroma, Co-Founder & Co-Managing Director of Cloud Comrade.

Alphaus was founded in 2015 and is backed by DNX Ventures, NTT DoCoMo Ventures, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Archetype Ventures, Accord Ventures and 500 Startups. The company counts NTT Data, Nomura Research Institute (NRI), and ISI-Dentsu, as its clients. Headquartered in Japan, the company has a growing Global Delivery Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia comprising 10 team members. Alphaus is looking to further expand in the APAC and Oceania regions.

 

Rapid.Space Cloud Announces New Japan Zone

The European company Rapid.Space has launched its first point of presence in Japan in partnership with Nexedi KK. The company has a presence in over 200 points all around the world.

This new zone will provide its clients in Japan the advantages of Rapid.Space hyper open architecture including open source software, open hardware and transparent, open services.

Rapid.Space will be offering its flagship virtual machines "VPS" (195€/month for 256 GB RAM and 20 cores) and "VPSBrute" (495€/month for 1 TB RAM and 64 cores), as well as web acceleration via its global CDN (content delivery network) and SDN (software-defined networking) through this Japan zone. These offerings will help its Japanese clients meet their high computational requirements.

"We are very proud to be growing our global infrastructure with the presence of Rapid.Space cloud in Japan. It is a country with one of the most innovative and technologically advanced economies — but also one with significantly higher cloud infrastructure costs. Here, we hope to carve out our niche with our Rapid.Space high-performance, hyper open virtual machines and access to our global CDN and SDN while also adding more points of presence throughout Japan," said Jean-Paul Smets, CEO of Rapid.Space.

 

Deloitte Join Forces with Palo Alto Networks to Improve Multi-Cloud Security

Deloitte, which operates the topmost MSSP and Palo Alto Networks in a recent press meet, has announced a strategic partnership in order to deliver robust multi-cloud security solutions to enterprise and government organizations. The two companies have developed innovative solutions that Deloitte will be offering through its zero trust and cloud security orchestration automation and response services.

Deloitte will combine its most innovative cyber risk consulting services with Palo Alto Networks' security capabilities with this partnership. By doing this, Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks can help their joint customers simplify the most critical security infrastructure and get the most value out of their cybersecurity investments. Palo Alto Networks will use its Prisma Cloud solution for cloud security posture management (CSPM) to help organizations eliminate security threats and will protect the servers against alert fatigue.

The Deloitte-Palo Alto Networks integrated multi-cloud security automation, and orchestration solutions are currently available in the United States. Both the companies aim to deliver application security, data and privacy, and other cybersecurity solutions to various global organizations. They will be offering these services to organizations in financial services, government, and other industries.