Real-Time Data Security Pioneer Borneo Raises $15+ million in Series A

Singapore-based real-time data security and privacy observability platform Borneo has raised $15.5 million in its Series A round. Vulcan Capital led this round of funding with participation from Prosus Ventures, Lytical Ventures, and existing investors Wavemaker Partners.

The company has raised $18 million in total funding to date. The company is planning to use the fresh funding to invest in its technology platform and meet the growing customer demand.

Tommy Teo, Head of Southeast Asia at Vulcan Capital, said, "Borneo’s best-in-breed solutions urgently address today’s data visibility, security, and proactive privacy management problems at speed and at scale. Borneo’s customers – both practitioners and business leaders alike – value the visibility and confidence that informed decision making and proactive remediation can bring to their data security postures and platforms."

Borneo was founded in 2019 and provides a developer-first suite of tools to identify high-risk and sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) through ML techniques and open APIs. Borneo's approach integrates with the existing tools and workflows, which allows companies to achieve privacy compliance by building a solid data security foundation. The company has a team with over 100 years of combined experience.

 

 

 

Jeff Bezos to Invest Big in Anti-Ageing Biotech Startup That Primarily Reprograms Human Cells

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos after returning back from his space expedition, is now all set to invest big in an anti-aging research company that predominantly works on reprogramming human cells. It is reported that Bezos is planning to invest in research-based company Altos Labs which was founded in 2021. It is dedicated to discovering out anti-aging process. The company is hiring researchers and scientists with offers of $1 million annual salaries for the purpose.

Altos Labs' anti-aging program would involve adding various proteins to the cell that controls the aging process and revert it to a stem-cell-like state to give rise to different cells. The company, which is based in the US and the UK, is planning to establish several research institutes in places like Bay Area, San Diego, London, and Japan to continue and expand its research.

Jeff Bezos investing in a biotech research firm is not at all new, as he has already invested in many companies in 2018 as well. Now he will be investing in Altos Labs, which will be working on the most exciting topic, which is making anti-aging therapies.

 

 

PayPal’s Paidy Deal Substantiates Pandemic-Led FinTech Boom

The US-based PayPal Holdings Inc confirms that it is taking over Paidy, a buy now, pay later platform, for $2.7 billion, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Buying Paidy, PayPal is all set to expand its footprint in the US where online shopping has tripled during the last decade to roughly $ 200 billion. Even though two-thirds of purchases are still paid in cash, the FinTech company is optimistic about its continued growth in the US.

The PayPal-Paidy deal reflects how the pandemic-led boom continues to broaden its horizon. Besides FinTech, the ecommerce and manufacturing sectors have witnessed a major boom during the pandemic.

“I wouldn't view this (deal) as impacting the U.S. BNPL market but more as PayPal's route into the Japanese market,” Kunaal Malde, an analyst at Atlantic Equities, said.

Like Americans, the Japanese also prefer cash over online transactions. However, things have changed in the recent past as the FinTech industry continues to flourish.

“One of the notable things about Japan’s BNPL market compared to the United States or Europe is that most users clear their outstanding balance by the end of the month in one payment. In Japan accumulating debt is more frowned on.”

With all this said, PayPal is eyeing the top spot in an industry experiencing a boom led by the ongoing pandemic.

The quotes used in this piece were extracted from Reuters.

 

Everise to Open Digital CX Innovation Center in Singapore

The global customer experience company Everise has said that it is establishing a Digital Innovation Center in Singapore. The company is also betting big on Asia now.

The US-based company was operating in Malaysia and Japan in joint-venture, but it exited that to go into the business itself. The company is going to focus its investments in Malaysia and Japan; additionally, it will look to add 700 jobs by the end of 2021.

Everise has already recruited 600 native Asian speakers in Kuala Lumpur and Japan for its multinational clients.

"Over the past three years we have seen the opportunity to expand our services in Asia. Companies that are rapidly growing and new market entrants have demand to deliver innovative, multilingual brand experiences," says Everise founder and CEO, Sudhir Agarwal. "We also intend to open a first-of-its-kind center for innovation for our regional clients in Singapore in the last quarter of 2021."

Apart from establishing a Digital CX Innovation Center, the Everise plans to employ 100 Singaporeans by the end of year and 400 by the end of 2022.

 

NEC, AWS Expand Collaboration in the Global 5G and Digital Government Spaces

The Japanese IT Multinational conglomerate NEC has announced the expansion of its collaboration with AWS in the areas of global 5G and digital government.

The two behemoths had announced a corporate-level strategic collaboration agreement in November 2020. Now, NEC will expand on this collaboration.

"NEC is pleased to announce the expansion of its strategic collaboration with AWS. Last year, NEC announced this global collaboration as the first of its kind between AWS and a Japanese company. It has been a great year, seeing many successes in the areas of government, modernization and in the skill enhancement of NEC engineers. NEC is now expanding the collaboration with AWS in the areas of global 5G, digital government and in enhanced hybrid cloud offerings. With the strong global support from AWS, NEC will help drive digital transformation in the government sector and across industries as part of orchestrating a brighter world," said Toshifumi Yoshizaki, Executive Vice President at NEC Corporation.

Through this renewed collaboration, NEC will look to develop an end-to-end 5G offering and provide it globally by combining NEC's high performance cloud-native open 5G mobile core, OSS/BSS solutions, local 5G use cases etc., and AWS cloud and edge solutions. This effort will also try to accelerate the cloudification of network workloads and enhance digital transformation for enterprises by deploying 5G-based infrastructure and application at the network edge.

NEC will also strengthen its relation with AWS to develop and provide a range of offerings to accelerate the digital transformation for government activities in Japan.

NASA's Perseverance rover successfully extracts the first-ever Martian rock sample

In a first-ever for Humankind, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover collects a sample of Martian rock at the Jerezo crater on the planet Mars. The Mission Controllers confirmed the historic milestone at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in southern California.

The sample, slightly thicker than a pencil, was extracted from a flat, briefcase-sized rock named "Rochette" at the Jerezo crater. The rotary-percussive drill at the end of the Perseverance rover's robotic arm collected the sample and placed it in an airtight titanium tube for future retrieval. The rover Perseverance confirmed the collection of the sample by using its camera to send a picture back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California before closing the tube.

In subsequent space missions organized by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), this Martian rock sample and samples to be collected will be retrieved in the future.

A key objective of the Perseverance rover's mission on the red planet is astrobiology, including the search for ancient life on the planet. The rover will also study and characterize the planet's geology and past climatic conditions. This mission will be instrumental for future human exploration of Mars and will be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock, soil, and dust samples.

 

 

The NoiseFit Active smartwatch might be the next big thing in the mid-range category

There are many fitness trackers in the market which also tend to serve as smartwatches, and most of the smartwatches come with fitness and health tracking features. Previously, fitness trackers and smartwatches had some kind of distinction between them, but now we get a healthy blend of both. This has led to making the mid-range segment becoming more competitive and interesting, with brands like Noise, Realme, Fire-Bolt, Boat, Xiaomi, and Zebronics delivering excellent options under 5k. The latest entrant in this segment is the NoiseFit Active smartwatch.

The new budget smartwatch has some interesting health-tracking features, and it stands out well from the competition. Some of the features of the NoiseFit Active smartwatch include blood oxygen tracking, sleep monitoring, heart rate sensor, and exercise monitoring. The new smartwatch can also show the notifications of your phone, and it is one of the best buys right now. The dial on the NoiseFit Active smartwatch is 1.28 inches and comes with a TFT-LCD screen. Two buttons are placed on the side of the smartwatch, and it is for power and to open the menu. The method of navigation is totally touch-based, with taps and swipes to select options and move around.