Amazon rolls out India’s first celebrity voice on Alexa with Amitabh Bachchan

Amazon has rolled out India’s first celebrity voice feature on Alexa with the nation’s biggest movie star Amitabh Bachchan as the company makes a push to lure more users in the world’s second-most populated nation. The company, which rolled out the voice of Samuel Jackson on Alexa in the U.S. in 2019, said users in […]

Brazil’s Nuvemshop raises $500M at a $3.1B valuation months after last raise

Just five months after raising $90 million, Brazil’s Nuvemshop announced today it has raised $500 million in a round co-led by Insight Partners and Tiger Global Management. The financing values Nuvemshop — which some say is Latin America’s answer to Shopify — at $3.1 billion, and brings the São Paulo-based startup’s total funding in the […]

Singapore’s logistics tech startup Parcel Perform raises $20 million

Singapore-headquartered Parcel Perform, which connects merchants with e-commerce carriers and provides shipment tracking features, said on Wednesday it has raised $20 million in a new financing round as it scales its business in several parts of the world. Cambridge Capital led the logistics tech startup’s Series A financing round, while SoftBank Ventures Asia and existing […]

Omnibiz gets $3M to digitize Nigeria’s informal B2B supply chain

Despite the prevalence of shopping malls and the emergence of VC-backed e-commerce companies like Jumia, informal retail in Africa is still king. A 2016 study by PwC states that 90% of sales in Africa’s major economies come through informal channels — markets and kiosks. This presents a large market ripe for digitization, and over the […]