Daily Briefing: Temasek leads funding in US-based Bowery Farming; Fintech Xfers launches stablecoin pilot

And parenting portal theAsianparent closes its Series C funding.

From DealStreetAsia:

Singapore state investor Temasek has led a $67.84m (US$50m) Series B extension round for Bowery Farming, a four-year-old startup that uses robotics to cultivate crops indoors.

The fresh funding brings the New York-based company’s total capital raised to $172.5 million.

“[Our] team is elated to announce an additional $50 million in funding led by Temasek that will drive further innovation and scale across our organization,” it said on its Linkedin page.

Launched in 2015, Bowery is the modern farming company that uses robotics, LED lighting and data analytics to grow leafy greens indoors. The company is currently operating two indoor farms in Kearny, New Jersey. Its new farm in Baltimore is around 3.5 times larger than the last, the company said.

Read more here.

From e27:

Fintech platform Xfers has launched StraitsX, a blockchain-enabled initiative that seeks to further the goal of building an open financial ecosystem for inclusion in the region.

Powered by Ziliqa, the high-security blockchain that powers enterprises and applications, Xfers aims to make StraitsX a frictionless and transparent payments ecosystem for Southeast Asia.

Xfers launches of their StraitsX pilot initiative starting with XSGD, a token pegged 1:1 to the Singapore Dollar to increase the level of transparency for transactions, while also reducing friction to accessing financial products.

This initiative will be supported by a number of early members, such as Binance Singapore, Coinhako, Coinut, Sparrow, Tokenize Xchange, and WoWoo Exchange.

In January 2019, Xfers obtained the approval for Widely Accepted Stored Value Facility (WA SVF) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), making it the first digital wallet to do so.

Read more here.

From e27:

Parenting portal theAsianparent closed a seven-figure Series C funding from Mirae Asset Financial Group and NAVER Corporation through their Mirae Asset-Naver New Growth Fund.

The latest funding will be utilised to further implement theAsianparent’s diversification strategy, which entails expanding its foray into the commerce business through manufacturing and creating its own direct-to-consumer line of maternity and baby products.

theAsianparent will also be allocating more resources into improving and expanding its technology infrastructure through investments in advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence support.

The media site with a monthly network reach of nearly 30 million users, secured an eight-figure Series C Funding in July 2019 led by Fosun International, along with other investors such as JD.com, ATM Capital and Redbadge Pacific.

Through its localised content and community platform, it aims to help more than 50 million parents raise happy and healthy children and families and expand its community reach to new markets with high fertility rates.

Read more here.