Study Point

East Ventures has long been known as one of Indonesia’s longest-serving and most active seed-stage investors, but now it has officially moved up the food chain after it announced a final close of its growth fund at $200 million. Called EV Growth, the fund is a joint venture between East Ventures, SMDV — the VC arm of Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas — and YJ Capital, which is associated with Yahoo Japan. The fund was first announced last year with a target of $150 million, but this final close has already surpassed that thanks to contributions from LPs that include SoftBank Group, Pavilion CapitaI and Indies Capital. EV Growth is already active, with 40% of the fund deployed to date, according to East Ventures’ founding partner Willson Cuaca, who serves as partner for the new fund alongside Roderick Purwana from SMDV and  YJ Capital’s Shinichiro Hori. “We thought ‘There’s a gap in Series B in Southeast Asia, many of our portfolio is good so why not do this together?'” C...

In a week where AMD , Intel and Qualcomm have already made major announcements, Microsoft’s keynote yesterday at Computex in Taipei was relatively lowkey. Instead of revealing new products, the company hinted at what it wants in a modernized operating system. Intriguingly, Microsoft’s blog post about the keynote does not mention Windows, lending credence to speculation that it is developing a new “super-secure” OS. According to the blog post by Nick Parker, corporate vice president of consumer and device sales, a modern OS should enable “form factor agility” by being flexible enough to be integrated into different types of devices, which is noteworthy because last year the company hinted at new additions to the Surface lineup , which some have speculated might mean the line is adding a smartphone. He added that a modern OS should include seamless updates, done invisibly in the background without forcing people to stop using their computers and be secure by default, preventing att...

Revel Transit has released 1,000 of its shared electric mopeds onto the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, following the end of a nine-month pilot program in the area. The New York-based startup pulled the original 68 mopeds it used in its limited pilot and has replaced them with new models (and hundreds more of them) built for two riders and equipped with kickstands for parking. Revel has expanded the service as well. The pilot restricted moped movement to the Bushwick, Williamsburg or Greenpoint neighborhoods. Now, the Revel mopeds will be available in more than 20 neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. “During the nine-month pilot, we learned what worked well, what needed fixing and what users wanted from the service going forward,” Revel co-Founder and CEO Frank Reig said in a release. Venture firm Maniv Mobility led Revel’s seed round. The company has raised $4.5 million, according to PitchBook . The deluge of Revel mopeds comes amid a larger debate about access to transportatio...

  After visiting Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge several months ago to report on how it was built , I came back on the eve of it opening to the public to try out its first marquee attraction: flying the Millennium Falcon. Well, I flew it, and it was good. Real good. This ride is for everyone who dreamed of piloting the Falcon more than they dreamed about holding a lightsaber. This ride is for every person that rode Star Tours shuttle and gripped the slightly up-turned handles wishing hard that they could fly it. It’s a quintessential part of the Star Wars universe made flesh. It’s clever, incredibly well art-directed and absolutely smoothly operational. The ride offers a thrilling group experience that will foster shouting and interaction in the cockpit just as we’ve seen in the movies. It will very likely also breed some post-flight posturing or trash talking depending on how each individual performs their tasks. The scene setting and queue for the Falcon is pitch perfect. You walk ...

Brex , the fintech business that’s taken the startup world by storm with its sought after corporate card tailored for entrepreneurs, is raising millions in Series D funding less than a year after it launched, TechCrunch has learned. Bloomberg reports Brex is raising at a $2 billion valuation, though sources tell TechCrunch the company is still in negotiations with both new and existing investors. In response to a request for comment, Brex co-founder and chief executive officer Henrique Dubugras told TechCrunch they have no news to announce at this time. Kleiner Perkins is leading the round via former general partner Mood Rowghani, who left the storied venture capital fund last year to form Bond alongside Mary Meeker and Noah Knauf. As we’ve previously reported , the Bond crew is still in the process of deploying capital from Kleiner’s billion-dollar Digital Growth Fund III, the pool of capital they were responsible for before leaving the firm. Bond, which recently closed on $1...

Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said the streaming service (which is spending billions of dollars on an ever-growing catalog of original content ) will “rethink [its] whole investment in Georgia” if a recently signed abortion law goes into effect. Sarandos’ statement was first published in Variety.  The industry publication said it reached out to the major studios for comment on the issue, and it contrasted his position with a lack of response from The Walt Disney Company, WarnerMedia, Sony Pictures Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Viacom, Fox and Amazon Studios. “We have many women working on productions in Georgia, whose rights, along with millions of others, will be severely restricted by this law,” Sarandos said. “It’s why we will work with the ACLU and others to fight it in court. Given the legislation has not yet been implemented, we’ll continue to film there, while also supporting partners and artists who choose not to. Should it ever come into effect, we’d reth...