This brings to a close OYO’s US$1B financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800M into the company

OYO gets US$100M from China’s Didi Chuxing [The Economic Times]

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has invested US$100 million in Southeast Asia’s budget hotel aggregator chain OYO. The investment, which continues to value Oyo at about US$5 billion, has been made from Didi-controlled entity Star Virtue Investment, people aware of developments told ET.

This brings to a close OYO’s US$1 billion financing round led by existing backer SoftBank Vision Fund, which has pumped US$800 million into the company.

The Didi investment comes a little over two months after Singapore-headquartered transportation major Grab infused the same amount in the Gurgaon-based startup.

Circles.Life to expand to Taiwan, Australia this year after securing Sequoia investment [Channel News Asia]

Mobile virtual network operator, Circles.Life, on Thursday announced it will be expanding its presence from beyond Singapore’s shores, with plans to enter Taiwan and Australia this year.

Its regional expansion plans come after it closed a Series C funding round led by Sequoia India, the company said in a press release. No details on the size of investment that was raised were disclosed.

CEO Rameez Ansar told Channel NewsAsia in an interview before the announcement that this is one of the few times Sequoia is investing in a telco, which is testament to what the company is trying to achieve – creating a telco experience on top of the infrastructure akin to what Uber and Grab did to disrupt the taxi industry.

Google, Apple face calls to pull Saudi app allowing men to monitor wives [Reuters]

A Saudi Arabian government app that allows men in the country to monitor and control their female relatives’ travel at the click of a button should be removed from Google and Apple’s online stores, a US politician and activists said on Wednesday.

Human rights campaigners argued the tech giants are enabling abuses against women and girls in the ultra-conservative kingdom by hosting the app.

The free Absher app, created by the Saudi interior ministry, allows men to update or withdraw permissions for their wives and female relatives to travel internationally and get SMS updates if their passports are used, said human rights researchers.

Indonesia’s trader platform Stockbit acquires mutual fund app Bibit [DealStreetAsia]

Indonesia-based Stockbit, a social network for stock traders, has acquired local investment startup Bibit for an undisclosed fee to simplify investment process for first-time traders. Prior to the acquisition, which took place late last year, Bibit was an OJK-licensed tech-based mutual fund seller.

Following the deal, Stockbit has relaunched Bibit as a robo-advisory platform to simplify conventional time-tested investment products to the Indonesian public.

“(Bibit will be) a one-click solution to invest in an optimal portfolio that is personalized towards your age and risk profile,” Stockbit CEO Wellson Lo told DealStreetAsia.

The post Today’s top tech news, Feb 14: China’s Didi Chuxing injects US$100M into OYO appeared first on e27.