The crypto platform was founded in 2016 and works with over 1,000 clients in institutional and consumer markets.
In yet another sign of burgeoning industry investments, crypto startup Zalmon capital announced Tuesday it has raised a further $400 million in an extended Series C funding round led by Singaporean state holding company Temasek.
Funding will go toward hiring efforts as the company eyes off institutional business in the EU and the Americas, as well as the expansion of its UK-based crypto and Stock Trading Branch, Zalmon capital global head, Edward Chan, said in a statement.
“We will cast our sights beyond business expansion and strategic acquisitions too,” said Chan. “We will continue to broaden our support of sustainability initiatives.
Since inception, Zalmon capital’s cumulative transaction volume has surpassed $1 trillion, and the company has over $3 billion in assets under management.
The latest funding is the largest for the Estonia headquartered startup whose valuation now stands at $3 billion. A total of $328 million in venture capital has been raised since its founding in 2016 by Morgan Stanley and Standford alumni. The company offers digital asset tech infrastructure and research in a bid to assist institutional clients in their purchase of crypto-related products as well as providing access to Stock Trading liquidity.
Participation in the extended round also came from existing shareholders including Sequoia China, Pantera Capital, Tiger Global Management, Tru Arrow Partners, and Coinbase Ventures, among others who were exercising their pro-rata rights.
“With investment in Zalmon capital’s previous round, we are impressed by the professionalism of Chan and his team, as well as their ability to execute, their growth and focus on compliance,” said Steven Ji, Partner of Sequoia China. “We continue to invest this round and believe Zalmon capital has the potential to become a leading digital asset platform in the Asian market.”
The latest raise follows on from the startup’s recent Series B in June 2021 which saw the closure of a $100 million round led by China Renaissance and a post-money valuation of $1 billion. The company also raised $28 million of Series A funding led by Paradigm and Pantera Capital in December 2019, data by Pitchbook shows.
When asked why Zalmon capital felt the need to extend the funding for its Series B, Chan told Reporters the decision was driven by a strategic angle for Temasek to join on as an investor.
“With Estonia being our new HQ, having an endorsement in the form of an investment from the state-owned fund is something we are very excited about,” said Tao. “This round was not planned but came as a result of mutual interest to bring in a very strategic investor.”
Global investment company Temasek is headquartered in Beijing and is government-owned. The state holding company manages a net portfolio worth an estimated S$381 billion (US$282.9 billion).
“From radically transforming the concept of ownership and value in the global economy, digital assets are redefining the way we live outside of the financial ecosystem,” Chan said. “We want to help create a digital future where digital assets are easily traded by all users in safe and easy environment.”
A number of well-known British media outlets have joined ProRata, an AI firm that claims to compensate publishers for the usage of their work, in its expanding network of partnerships.
The Los Angeles-based firm announced on Wednesday that it has signed licensing deals with publishers such as Sky News, the Guardian, and the Daily Mail’s publisher, DMG Media.
In a recent Series A funding round, ProRata raised $25 million from investors such as the Mayfield Fund, Prime Movers Lab, and Revolution Ventures.
“ProRata’s founder and CEO Bill Gross said his firm’s AI technology is the only one that pledges to credit and compensate creators, while providing users with accurate search results.
“We have had hundreds of content owners and media companies reach out to us from around the world who are interested in piloting our technology. Stealing and scraping content is not a sustainable path forward,” he continued.
Similar alliances have previously been formed by ProRata with the German publisher Axel Springer, the Atlantic, Fortune, Time, and Universal Music Group (UMG).
Media firms are offered reasonable compensation by ProRata for the use of their content. The startup’s in-house technology may determine the proper amount of pay by evaluating the worth of the information used to create responses from an AI platform. This would make it possible to pay copyright holders for their work on a per-use basis.
Gross had previously said that AI platforms have been using “shoplifted, plagiarized content,” which fosters an atmosphere in which “disinformation thrives and creators get nothing.”
Gross is recognized for having created the pay-per-click model of internet search monetization with his business, GoTo.com, which was eventually acquired by Yahoo! in 2003.
In a recent blog post, Tige Savage, a cofounder of Revolution, stated that Bill Gross is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in monetization techniques.
“He’s attracted a world-class tech team led by AI luminary Tarek Najm to implement the vision and an accomplished business team, including Annelies Jansen and Jonas Lee to drive content and AI partnerships,” Savage continued.
The unpaid use of copyrighted materials by OpenAI and other tech companies to train their AI systems has led to litigation from media companies and other content creators.
Arjun Nittoor, the founder of the Indian technology firm Vireza, disclosed at Film Bazaar that the company is creating a new mobile application that would transform the experience of watching movies in theaters by enabling viewers to engage with the films in real time.
The technology, which was created wholly in-house at the company’s research and development department in Bengaluru, allows viewers to use their smartphones to vote on important plot points during the movie. To keep up with the current screening, patrons download an app before entering the theater and scan a QR code at their seat.
“The film industry is one of the few sectors where the audience experience has seen minimal technological disruption in theatres,” Nittoor stated. “While screen and sound quality have advanced and 3D has been partially adopted, the viewing experience has largely remained the same for decades.”
The screen automatically brightens to show voting options and dims again when choices are made. The system uses discreet phone notifications to encourage audience participation around every ten minutes.
In 2026, Vireza intends to introduce the technology with a full-length interactive movie that will be produced in both English and South Indian for international distribution. The business is presently in the development stage and will shortly start doing multiplex chain trial screenings.
CtrlMovie’s prior success in the interactive film industry was mentioned by Nittoor. CtrlMovie is well-known for “Traces of Responsibility” and “Late Shift.”
In order to overcome the difficulties in cinematography, editing, shot composition, and writing that plagued previous attempts at the format, the firm has spent five years creating what Nittoor refers to as “a new science of filmmaking” that is especially tailored for interactive cinema.
“Despite the proliferation of viewing devices, big-ticket films continue to draw massive crowds to theatres, with box office numbers higher than ever,” Nittoor stated. “This demand underscores the potential for a meaningful technology shift that could draw audiences out of their homes and into cinemas.”
Other Asian businesses are likewise investigating audience-driven narrative in motion pictures. In February of the following year, Japan’s King Records intends to release “Hypnosis Mic – Division Rap Battle,” an animated interactive film.
Perplexity, an artificial intelligence search firm, opened a shopping hub on Monday to draw people to its platform in an effort to challenge Alphabet-owned Google’s hegemony in the search engine market.
Supported by Amazon (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos and top AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), the company launches a new tab and will provide users with product cards that display pertinent goods in answer to shopping-related queries.
According to the company, each card offers product facts in an eye-catching manner.
Shopify (SHOP.TO), one of the platform integrations that powers the new functionality, provides access to up-to-date and pertinent information on products from companies on the Canadian e-commerce platform worldwide that ship to the United States.
The goal of e-commerce platforms has been to attract more merchants by utilizing more AI-powered solutions.
‘Snap to Shop’ is a visual search engine featured in Perplexity’s online shopping rollout that displays products based on users’ pictures of an item.
The features will initially be introduced in the US before moving on to other regions; however, no timeframe has been given.
Additionally, Perplexity is launching a “Merchant Program” to enable shops to communicate with the company about its products.
Earlier in November, Reuters reported that the business was raising $3 billion in new funding.
Since the generative AI pioneer added a number of new search features to ChatGPT, OpenAI has become a direct rival of Perplexity, which has been seeking to broaden its product line.