Technology

Southeast Asia-based internet firm Sea is raising $400 million through the sale of notes in what would be its first fundraising activity since it went public via in an October 2017 IPO that raised over $1 billion.

The Singapore-based company, formerly known as Garena, said that the senior note offering will put toward general costs and business expansion. Long-time investor Tencent is expected to buy up $50 million of the notes on offer, and the offering itself could be extended by a further $60 million.

SeaIPO was a landmark for Southeast Asia, where startup exits are few and far between, but the company hasn&t exactly set Wall Street on fire since making its public bow. Its share price is $16.40 at the time of writing, having debuted at $15. It has risen thanks to gains over the past month following its most recent earnings but initially the company spent a lot of time priced under $15.

Sea share price, via Yahoo Finance

So what got investors excited In short, signs of growth.

Revenue for Q1 jumped 81 percent year-on-year as its Shopee e-commerce service doubled its GMV and the firmAirPay payment unit quadrupled its transaction volume, but ultimately the business remains unprofitable. Losses jumped from $73 million to $216 million and Seacost of revenue more than doubled, indicating that it is still chasing growth for its businesses.

While AirPay and Shopee, which competes with the likes of Alibaba-owned Lazada for the attention of Southeast Asia600 million consumers,are growing, the same can&t be said of Seamain business. It rose to prominence selling games via its Garena service, with Tencent a particular ally here, but that businessis seeing new user growth flatten and and revenue gains slow.

It makes sense that Sea is playing up its digital business sincethe big opportunity in Southeast Asia is e-commerce, as evidenced by Alibabarecent double-down on Lazada — which it first bought a majority stake in for $1 billion in 2016. Alibaba invested $1 billion more in 2017 and thena further $2 billion in March to increase its ownership.It also installed a number of its own executives in a bid to help Lazada grow its business and the overall e-commerce industry in Southeast Asia, too.

A much-cited report co-authored by Google forecasts that e-commerce in Southeast Asia will surpass $88 billion by 2025. Thatup from an estimated $10.9 billion in 2017.

Sea said previously that it expects Shopee to reach $8.2-$8.7 billion in GMV in 2018, a increase thatpotentially as high as 112 percent year-on-year. Thatup on its previous guidance of $7.5-$8 billion but, since it is GMV, it doesn&t translate to direct revenue for the company itself. Sea had previously boosted Shopee by allowing a high burn rate to fund merchant and buyer promotions. It only began to monetize the service last year.

Fresh from revealing plans to add Ethereum Classic to its exchange, crypto giant Coinbase today announced that itscryptocurrency index fund — first revealed in March — is open to investors in the U.S..

The company said in a blog post that it has see &overwhelming& interest from investors, and now it is reaching out to those who want to invest between $250,000 and $20 million. For now, the company said, participation is limited to the U.S. and those who are accredited investors.

Thata pretty big caveat since crypto, by default, is open to anyone — although many ICOs tread carefully in markets like the U.S. —but Coinbase is very specifically target institutional capital, having recently added services for Wall Street-like professional investors.

The pitch is that it knows the market, its service covers the most stable assetsand it won&t charge the kind of rates that existing funds do, as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong explained on Twitter.

Heremore:

Coinbase Index Fund gives investors exposure to all assets listed on our exchange, weighted by market capitalization. As we announced yesterday, the fund will be rebalanced to include Ethereum Classic, and more assets when they are listed by Coinbase in the future.

Coinbase did say that it is working to launch other funds that are &accessible to all investors and cover a broader range of digital assets& so, if you&re not an accredited U.S. investor, there might yet be opportunities for you depending on what comes next. However, given that Coinbase is striving to be SEC-compliant — and the SEC is in the middle of a major crypto investigation — it might take some time to reach the longer tail of retail investors.

Stay tuned, though, we&ll be asking questions to two key people at Coinbase over the coming months and this topic is sure to be on the menu.CTO Balaji Srinivasan will appear at our blockchain event in Zug next month, while CEO Amstrong is among the guests who will take to the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in September.

8bitdo debuted a bunch of gaming controllers at E3 this week, but honestly, we only care about one. The Zero 2 is an adorable little Bluetooth controller that fits in the palm of your hand. Itcompatible with all sorts of systems, including desktop computers and Android devices, but the size makes it perfect for playing the Nintendo Switch on the go.

And as you can see by the &classic& color scheme above, the peripheral maker was clearly interested in evoking some serious Nintendo nostalgia, with a device that looks a lot like a Super Nintendo controller at first glance.

The Zero 2 sports four number buttons, select, start and a D-pad on the front, with L and R buttons up top, flanking a microUSB port. All have a solid click to them, though the company didn&t have a full operational unit we could play with (the controller isn&t coming out until the end of the year).

I suspect that the diminutive size means it won&t be ideal for long gaming marathons, but it does beat having to hold the Switch for an extended period. Better still, it can be connected to a keychain, so you&ll never lose the thing.

No pricing has been announced.