Hiip nabs Series A and AsiaYo expands to Southeast Asia

Hiip, a startup offering an automated influencer platform to help brands and advertisers connect with social influencers in Vietnam and Thailand, has secured a “7-digit Series A round” led by Thai VC firm Vnet Capital.

Japan Strategic Capital, Tokyo-listed marketing technology company Rentracks and Singapore-based Vulpes Investment Management have also joined the round.

Launched in April 2016, Hiip is an online platform to help connect brands, advertisers directly with the appropriate impact on the first social network in Vietnam and Thailand. Using AI and Big Data technologies, the platform helps brands and advertisers to reach target customers, build brand reputation and increase sales by connecting directly with a network of thousands of influencers to promote products product, service or specific campaigns.

Taiwan vacation rental startup AsiaYo expands to Singapore and Malaysia 

AsiaYo, a travel startup that recently raised US$7 million from Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund and China Development Financial, announced today plans to expand to Singapore and Malaysia. In Southeast Asia, the company already has a presence in Thailand.

The company will launch their service in Singapore and Malaysia during the second quarter of 2019. It also plans to expand to Japan in H2 2019.

AsiaYo is a vacation rental platform based in Taiwan that claims to have over 60,000 listings across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Thailand.

Alibaba buys Infinity Augmented Reality, an Israel VR company 

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has bought Infinity Augmented Reality, an Israeli startup focussed on virtual reality, according to TechCrunch.

Alibaba had led Infinity’s Series C funding round in 2016 and has worked with the company on numerous projects since that time.

The company has built a platform that makes it easier for companies to integrate augmented and virtual reality into their apps. As part of the deal, Infinity’s R&D team will work out of Alibaba’s Israel Machine Laboratory based in Tel Aviv.

Singapore AI data protection startup raises funding 

Singapore-based Dathena, an AI-based data protection and privacy management platform, has announced the closing of a funding round led by MS&AD Ventures Inc. Participating in the round are existing investors CerraCap Ventures and Demetis.

Dathena said it will use the funding to support the global deployment of new customers. Later this year, the company plans to have another funding round to enable further scaling.