Daily Briefing: Social service agencies to get $20m grant for tech adoption boost; AI platform Near bags $135.9m

And here are the best teams to work for in Citi Singapore.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

The National Council of Social Services (NCSS) has launched its Tech Booster initiative where $20m will be allotted for charities’ and social service agencies’ technology adoption.

These include an intelligent surveillance system called SoundEye, which can alert staff when people fall or injure themselves, and an autonomous cleaning robot designed to have human-like responses.

Social service agencies can get up to 98% funding, capped at $450,000 per centre, if they adopt three or more technology solutions.

Applications to NCSS are now open and will close at the end of September.

“The initiative enables existing care workers to provide better service to more clients, raise staff morale and retention and increase client centricity. Care workers’ roles can also be upgraded to attract more Singaporeans to take up these jobs,” said NCSS in a media release.

Read more here.

From DealStreetAsia:

Singapore-headquartered artificial intelligence (AI) platform Near, which is backed by Sequoia Capital and JP Morgan, has raised $135.9m (US$100m) in a new round of funding, two years after it last secured money from investors.

The money takes Near to $182m (US$134m) raised to date – it last raised funding in 2017 – and it comes from London-headquartered private equity firm Greater Pacific Capital, the company said in a statement.

Founded in 2012, Near claims to be the largest source of intelligence on people and places, processing data from over 1.6 billion monthly users across 44 countries based on a trove of information and sources.

Brands, enterprises, and publishers can get a quick view of what their customers around the world are doing on a given day in a “privacy-led environment”, giving companies the idea on what marketing tools and services to offer.

Its flagship SaaS product, Allspark, enables end-to-end marketing automation for clients and partners across more than 20 countries.

Read more here.

From eFinancialCareers:

Citi made 21% of its revenues from Asia in Q2, but it can provide some insights into the hottest teams to work at Citi in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Asian revenues in Citi’s Institutional Clients Group – which houses investment banking and trading among other businesses – was up 6% year on year in Q2 to $2,088m. Citi’s earnings report doesn’t provide further details, but a new league table suggests the firm’s M&A bankers helped to drive that success. Citi has moved from ninth to fourth place, year on year, in Dealogic’s ranking for Asia (ex-Japan) M&A revenue by bank in the first half of 2019.

Meanwhile, the firm’s Global Consumer Banking division registered its eighth consecutive quarter of growth in Q2 in Asia – consumer revenues increased 3% year on year (to $1,915m).

Read more here.