Vertex Holdings raises USD70m from Japan's Marubeni and SMBC

Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and trading house Marubeni are investing a total of $70 million in a new fund, aiming to nurture Asian technology startups.

Companies | JCB and Singapore's Socash to tie up for cardless cash advance service in Southeast Asia

Major Japanese credit card issuer JCB Co. will partner with Singaporean fintech startup Socash Pte. Ltd. to launch its first cardless cash advance service in Southeast Asia after spring 2020.

The two are in discussion on the new service, which will in effect see cash registers at retail outlets turned into automated teller machines.

Companies | PerimeterX Named Overall CyberSecurity Startup of the Year in 2019 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards Program

PerimeterX, the leading provider of application security solutions that keep web businesses safe in the complex digital world, today announced that it has been named the winner of the “Overall CyberSecurity Startup of the Year” award in the 2019 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards program from CyberSecurity Breakthrough, a leading independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global information security market today.

Companies | Boundless Bio uncloaks with $46M to create new cancer drugs

While the biotech industry has managed to drug other cancer-promoting mutations, such as gene fusions, tumors with high copy number amplification mutations have so far eluded efforts to drug them.

Armed with $46 million in series A funding, Boundless is looking to change it. It aims to understand how ecDNA forms, perpetuates and transcribes into proteins and then use that knowhow to identify new targets for a new class of cancer drugs.

Companies | InstaRem opens for business in Canada

InstaReM, the Singapore-headquartered digital cross-border payments provider has launched its services in Canada, solidifying its presence in North America.

InstaReM is registered as a Money Service Business with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) to remit and transmit funds out of Canada. The launch of the digital money transfer service will help individuals and businesses in Canada to send money to over sixty countries, including the UK and the US, with InstaReM’s Zero-Margin and Low-Fee international money transfers.