VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Japan's SoftBank (9984.T) is in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation SKG (DWA.O) in a deal that valued DreamWorks at as much as $3.4 billion, media reported on Sunday.

Activist investor Starboard Value LP said on Friday it has acquired a "significant" stake in Yahoo Inc YHOO.O and urged the Internet company to explore a merger with AOL Inc AOL.N.

Japan's SoftBank Corp said it expected a gain of about 500 billion yen ($4.6 billion) from Alibaba Group Holding's share listing in New York, where the Chinese e-commerce leader surged 38 percent on its first day of trade.

Inside Alibaba, where co-founders are revered like rock stars, relatively few employees know about the soft-spoken executive who for years kept his same cramped office, unfashionable clothes and the self-effacing demeanor of a metalworker's son.

Japan's SoftBank Corp and its U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Corp will offer a Sony smartphone for the first time, sources with knowledge of the matter said, as the two technology titans confront daunting challenges in the U.S. market.

Jack Ma, the founder and executive chair of Alibaba Group Holding, said investors and entrepreneurs can fall out like domestic couples squabbling over their children in a blog post published late on Monday as the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut prepares for its blockbuster initial public offering.

Search giant Yahoo Japan is set to take Japan-based telco eAccess from Internet firm Softbank in a deal valued at $3.2 billion (JPY324 billion) to beef up its e-commerce and advertising businesses.

New York, US-based commercial real estate (CRE) property research platform Reonomy nabbed $3.7 million in its Series A funding round led by SoftBank to simplify the process of gathering CRE data.

Japan-based mobile messaging app Line will launch an open sticker marketplace called Line Creators Market in April and will also release a Skype-like service in five countries.

InMobi has only been in business for less than a decade but it has already proven to be a worthy contender to tech giants in the mobile ad space, Voice & Data reported.

US-based telecommunications company Sprint is eyeing the purchase of rival T-Mobile USA next year in a deal worth $20 billion, according to sources cited in a report by The Wall Street Journal.

Indian e-commerce company Yebhi.com is looking to raise USD30 million to USD50 million from venture capital firms. If successful, Yebhi.com will follow leading online retailer Flipkart, which raised USD360 million.

Chicago-based marketing technology BrightTag secured USD27 million funding from Yahoo! Japan. The Japanese internet company's investment brought BrightTag's fund total its has raised so far to USD50 million.

A group of private equity investors, SoftBank and eBay had pumped in around USD150 to USD200 million worth of new funding to online marketplace Snapdeal.

The CEO of Softbank Corp said that there is no "firm plan" in place for the widely-anticipated Alibaba IPO.