Play-to-earn games of Decentral Games received a massive boost following investment from Polygon

Polygon, a popular name in the blockchain segment, has recently made an announcement that it is investing in Decentral Games to boost its effort in play-to-earn games. Play-to-earn is a well-known model in the gaming segment where the players will play games to get rewards or real money. Gamers who play Axie Infinity have been earning NFTs that can be sold for real money. People in countries like the Philippines are earning good money well above the minimum wage by playing the Axie Infinity game.

As of now, that is just one game that is showing immense potential, and Decentral Games is going after it. On the other hand, Polygon has now created a scaling solution for Ethereum. This shows that the company has created a technology that can offload transactions directly from Ethereum as the platform is expensive and slow. Polygon was founded in 2017, and since then, the company has built capabilities to process transactions from the blockchain that powers cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. The scaling solution of Polygon has garnered more than 500 Dapps under its hood and manages more than six million transactions daily. The latest announcement from Decentral Games comes right after a string of game launches that were backed by prominent partners.

 

 

Amazon and Microsoft Aids Cloud Startup Databricks to Boost its Valuation

A cloud-software vendor, Databricks, is illustrating how modern computing is changing. The startup has raised $1.6 billion in funding, increasing its valuation by a humungous 35 percent. It is now placed in the fourth position as the largest privately held, venture-backed US company. The other three companies in the first three positions are Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Google parent Alphabet Inc.

The San Francisco-based company, which started in the year 2013, is providing robust software services that let customers use and analyze their data in various cloud sectors. The cloud implementation rate accelerated during the pandemic as companies and individuals adopted new services. The businesses and governments also increasingly started signing up for a mix of providers to meet their needs. Databricks successfully leveraged this advantage, and now it's placed among the largest cloud-based ventures.

Databricks is one of the best examples of a startup rapidly shifting to private markets with a giant leap in valuation than other companies based in Silicon Valley. Many big companies are investing in Databricks as its market size is growing bigger in the data analysis sector. Besides, it has won favor with cloud vendors because of its unique operating style.

 

 

 

Wipro, Securonix Announce Partnership to Deliver Managed Security Services

Wipro has partnered with Securonix, a SIEM vendor, to deliver quality managed security services. This partnership will improve help Wipro improve businesses’ cyber organizational effectiveness, resiliency, and achieve a cost effective positive security posture.

Managed security services are incredibly important for CISOs and Cyber Operations teams, who use to tackle challenges in the areas of security monitoring, incident response and digital forensics, security orchestration and automation, security data lakes, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, host and endpoint security, application security and network security, among others.

"One of the largest risks to enterprises today is the lack of trained, experienced cybersecurity professionals. Wipro brings together best-in-class technology and people to solve cybersecurity issues and strengthen businesses’ overall security posture. Our partnership with Securonix -- a SIEM platform that’s trusted by half of the Fortune 500 -- is playing a key role in Wipro managed security services and underscores the larger industry need for real-time analytics combined with a world-class detection and incident response platform," said Tony Buffomante, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Cybersecurity and Risk Services, Wipro Limited.

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.