Funding Archives - Gizmochina

Nothing raises $96 million in funds to broaden its tech & product portfolio

Sean — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:32:05 +0000

Nothing has just announced that it has raised a sizeable 96 million US Dollars in a fundraising round led by Highland Europe. This news arrives just ahead of its highly anticipated Phone (2) launch and hints at its future plans for expansion.

Nothing receives $96 million in funding for future tech innovation & expansion

Notably, the announcement also comes after the company recently teased that it is collaborating with the known music group, Swedish House Mafia, for its Glyph Composer feature on the Phone (2). As per official notes, the brand employs over 450 people across seven offices globally. The company states it is seeking to bring cutting edge products to the market that bring innovation and community collaboration as well. Nothing has held two community financing rounds and has attracted over 8,000 private investors so far.

Furthermore, it aims on building products for the young and creative and work for a more “sustainable future.” As of right now, the company is gearing up to finally unveil the Nothing Phone (2) model on the 11th of July 2023. This device will arrive with a lower carbon footprint than its predecessor, showcasing the brand’s efforts in its sustainability goals. It is even working on bridging the gap between the company and its users, to push product innovation and better communication from its community feedback programs.

According to the Nothing CEO Carl Pei “In just over two years, we’ve assembled one of the strongest teams in the industry and sold over 1.5 million devices worldwide. It’s clear that there’s real demand for an innovative challenger in the consumer tech industry, and with this new round of financing, we’ve never been better positioned to realize our vision to make tech fun again.”

Epic Games raises $1 billion funding round, including $200 million from Sony

Jeet — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 05:08:50 +0000

Epic Games, creator of the famous ‘Fortnite’ game, has announced that it has raised $1 billion in a new funding round which also saw an investment of $200 million from Sony. This isn’t the first investment of Sony in Epic Games as the Japanese company had invested $250 million last year.

The gaming company reveals that with this new round of funding, it is now valued at $28.7 billion. The capital will be used by the company to build social experiences into Epic’s popular Fortnite and Rocket League games.

The latest funding comes as Epic Games and Apple are fighting a legal battle following the gaming company’s effort to avoid paying a 30 percent App Store fee as it launched its own in-app payment system. After that move, Apple banned Fortnite from its App Store and is also trying to defend antitrust allegations.

Epic Games has accused Apple of trapping people in its mobile device world and collecting “outsized commission” on the App Store that serves as the only source of digital content. On the other hand, Apple is countering that it has no monopoly when it comes to digital games. It remains to be seen which company wins this battle.

The company has launched its free-to-play battle-royal video game ‘Fortnite’ in 2017 and since then the game has seen a huge following among young gamers. It has more than 160 million users on its PC store. Prior to this funding round, the company had raised $3.4 billion, including a $1.78 billion round last August.

Xiaomi IoT’s eSIM provider has raised $15 million in funding

Sean — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 12:03:10 +0000

With the advent of newer networking standards, connectivity has become the backbone of various fields especially related to technology. Thus, the Xiaomi IoT eSIM provider, Showmac Tech, is banking on eSIMs becoming the integral infrastructure that allows for seamless and stable communication between devices and has even raised a large sum in funding.

Back in 2017, Xiaomi had invested in the then startup company, Showmac, that has now convinced more investors as it raised over 100 million yuan (roughly 15 million US Dollars) in funding in a Series A+ round. Lily Liu, founder and chief executive of Showmac said in an interview with TechCrunch that, “We believe cellular communication will become a mainstream trend in the era of IoT. WiFi works only when it’s connected to a small number of devices, but when the number increases dramatically it becomes unreliable.”

For those unaware, an eSIM basically acts like a traditional SIM card (subscriber identity module). However, it does not require a removable card, which also does away with the need for a SIM card slot on a device. In its place, dedicated eSIM is integrated into the device’s chip and is compatible with a number of telecom operators. In other words, an eSIM also works like an application or software development kit (SDK).

Showmac Tech began its pilot project when it supply Xiaomi’s ecosystem with eSIMs that helped in connect separate devices. At the moment, the company is currently targetting IoT products and a connection management software as a service. So far, Showmac has equipped more than 10 million devices, out of which over 30 percent are for Xiaomi.

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Huawei is looking for $1 billion in funding after US ban

Airyl Jaszly — Fri, 24 May 2019 14:35:30 +0000

As things get more and more tense between the US and China, Huawei is seeking funding. More specifically, the company’s looking to borrow a loan of $1 billion from a small group of people in its first major funding test since the US ban. According to insiders who refused to be named, Huawei is currently aiming for maturities of five and seven years.

Now, nothing’s exactly set in stone, and things are still in the early stages of discussion. As far as we’re concerned, a lot of details could still be changed an there’s no confirmation the deal will go through. If it does, the loan’s pricing — as well as the identities of the participating banks — could provide further clues on the market’s perception of Huawei’s financial strength.

RELATED: Panasonic confirms continued support for Huawei

The company had 37 billion yuan ($5.3 billion) of unsecured bank loans as of December, of which 2.8 billion yuan were due in one year or less, according to its 2018 annual report. It had cash and cash equivalents of about 2.6 times total borrowing.

Huawei’s latest fundraising attempt comes about four months after it obtained a 14 billion yuan loan from five Chinese banks. In September, the company raised $1.5 billion offshore from a group of 10 mostly international banks.

Trump was speaking at a news conference announcing a $16 billion aid package for farmers caught up in the US-China trade war when he addressed Huawei, which brings some interesting news. The company has been placed on a list that requires US firms get the US government’s permission to do business with it. This could mean Huawei still has a chance of working with US companies, though we’re not optimistic.

(Source)

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Google To Invest $550 Million In Chinese E-Commerce Site JD.com

Jeet — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 08:41:48 +0000

Aiming to expand its presence in fast-growing Asian markets, search engine giant Google announced that it is investing $550 million in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse JD.com. As a part of this transaction, Google will receive 27.1 million newly issued JD.com Class A ordinary shares at an issue price of $20.29 per share.

With this investment, Google will have less than a 1 percent stake in JD.com, said a spokesman for JD. The companies have described the investment as one piece of a broader partnership that will include the promotion of JD.com products on Google’s shopping service.

This move is expected to help JD.com to expand beyond its base in China and Southeast Asia in order to establish a meaningful presence in U.S. and European markets. Both companies also said that they would work together to develop retail infrastructure that can better personalize the shopping experience and reduce friction in a number of markets.

Commenting on this development, Philipp Schindler, Google chief business officer, said in the statement:

We are excited to partner with JD.com and explore new solutions for retail ecosystems around the world to enable helpful, personalized and frictionless shopping experiences that give consumers the power to shop wherever and however they want.

JD.com is competing with giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which has been more focused on forging domestic retail tie-ups. Jianwen Liao, JD.com’s chief strategy officer, in a statement, “This partnership with Google opens up a broad range of possibilities to offer a superior retail experience to consumers throughout the world.”

Google seems to be focused on stepping up its investments across Asia, which has become a battleground for the US and China-based giants because of rapidly growing middle class and a lack of infrastructure. Google recently took a stake in Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek and is reportedly going to invest in Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart which was recently acquired by Walmart.

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