VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank Corp has pumped in $250 million to become the top investor in Southeast Asian mobile taxi-booking application GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd, its biggest investment in a Southeast Asian Internet firm.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) has secured a license to invest $3 billion to expand its production in northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese government said.

As large parts of Europe's economy grind almost to a halt, attention will focus this week on the latest assessments of business confidence in the euro zone and Germany, which has just narrowly avoided a recession.

China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang proposed a friendship treaty with Southeast Asian countries and offered $20 billion in loans on Thursday but held firm on the line that Beijing will only settle South China Sea disputes directly with other claimants.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he sees momentum building for a Washington-backed free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific, after arriving in Beijing on the first leg of an eight-day Asia tour.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) has applied for a license to invest $3 billion in building a second smartphone factory in northern Vietnam, a government official said on Monday.

Thai energy drink maker Carabao Group PCL has set the price range of an initial public offering (IPO) at 26 to 28 baht a share, to raise up to 7 billion baht ($214.72 million), people with knowledge of the sale said.

Singapore City, Singapore-based same-day hotel booking app In2Nite raised $2.8M in a venture round led by IDG Ventures and other undisclosed investors to expand its reach across the Asian market.

The territorial dispute between China and Japan has caused the latter to pull out its investments from the country and redirecting its focus to other South East Asian countries where it has already funded companies with USD22.8 billion last year.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based taxi app GrabTaxi closed its Series A round with more than $1 million from Singaporean state-owned investment firm Vertex Ventures to conquer Southeast Asia.

Bangkok, Thailand-based digital publication platform Ookbee landed $7 million in a Series B funding led by Japanese outsourcing firm Transcosmos to fuel its Southeast Asian expansion.

San Francisco, US-based venture capital fund network IDG Ventures is currently raising $100 million for its third fund, the IDG Ventures III, to invest in early-stage startups in the US.

Flappy Bird, the popular mobile game created by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, proliferated in app stores and even on the Internet in the form of HTML5 games after the original game was pulled from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Queensland, Australia-based mining and exploration firm Axiom Mining acquired the gold-silver and copper-gold mineralization West Guadalcanal Project located in the Solomon Islands for an undisclosed amount.

Hanoi, Vietnam-based game developer Don Nguyen of dotGears took down the top-ranking mobile game Flappy Bird from both iOS and Google Play app stores today, reportedly due to the various criticisms he had been receiving in connection with the game.