Society Pass (SoPa) Acquires Singapore-based Gorilla Networks, a Next-Gen Blockchain/Web3 Mobile Virtual Network Operator to Drive SEA’s Growing Demand for a New Meta-Economy Experience

SINGAPORE, Jun 3, 2022 – (ACN Newswire) – Society Pass Incorporated ("SoPa") (Nasdaq: SOPA), Southeast Asia's leading data driven loyalty and ecommerce ecosystem, announced today that it acquired Singapore-based Gorilla Networks Pte Ltd ("Gorilla"), a leading next generation Web3-enabled MVNO.

Established in Singapore in 2019, Gorilla utilises Web3 technology to operate a MVNO for its users in Southeast Asia. With network coverage to over 160 countries, Gorilla offers a full suite of mobile communication services such as local calls, international roaming, data, and SMS texting. More importantly, Gorilla enables its customers to convert unused mobile data into digital assets or Gorilla GO Tokens through its innovative proprietary blockchain-based SwitchBack feature. Gorilla GO Tokens in turn can be redeemed for eVouchers, to offset future bills, or be redeemed for other value-added services.

With the rebound of the travel market throughout Southeast Asia in 2Q/3Q 2022, Gorilla expects to dramatically increase its customer base by marketing to the region's business and leisure travellers with its user-friendly technology platform. It plans to expand its MVNO services offering to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia over the next 12 months.

Dennis Nguyen, Society Pass Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, explained, "We are excited to make our first acquisition in Singapore, and welcome Gorilla into our SoPa family. Gorilla's technology platform aligns well with our acquisition strategy as we incorporate Gorilla's blockchain and Web3 capabilities onto the SoPa ecosystem and enable the new meta-economy for all our portfolio companies. From our Leflair lifestyle e-commerce platform to our Pushkart/Handycart F&B delivery services, as we roll out the Society Pass loyalty platform in the coming months, we leverage Gorilla's technology to drive customer retention for merchants and create innovative revenue models for our ecosystem."

"When we started Gorilla Networks three years ago, our vision was to build a democratised mobile communications service platform where users regardless of nationality, home location or mobile subscription plans can access essential telecoms services such as roaming and mobile data anywhere and everywhere throughout the world. Gorilla is currently transitioning existing web 2 telco services onto the web3 economy by tokenising mobile data as digital assets. In 2021, we digitised eSIMS, data plans, and mobile numbers as NFTs, which dramatically transformed how our users purchase, interact and experience mobile services. By joining forces with SoPa's extensive ecosystem and large user base in Southeast Asia, we are thrilled about the combined marketing capabilities we will now bring collectively to our partners and customers," exclaimed Xanne Leo, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gorilla Networks.

Society Pass leverages cutting edge technology to tailor an unprecedented experience for the next generation customers in the purchase journey and to transform the entire retail value chain in Southeast Asia. Through the acquisitions of market-leading companies and partnerships with visionary entrepreneurs in six distinct B2C e-commerce verticals: lifestyle, food & beverage delivery, travel, digital marketing, telecoms and food and beverage ordering, the Company meets SEA's growing demand for a new meta-economy experience.

About Society Pass

As a loyalty and data marketing ecosystem, Society Pass operates multiple e-commerce platforms across its key markets in SEA. Its business model focuses on analysing user data through the expected launch of its Society Pass loyalty platform and circulation of its universal loyalty points, which seamlessly connects consumers and merchants across multiple product and service categories to foster organic loyalty. Since its inception, SoPa has amassed over 1.6 million registered consumers and over 5,500 registered merchants/brands on its platform. It has invested 2+ years building proprietary IT architecture with cutting edge components to effectively scale and support its consumers, merchants, and acquisitions.

Society Pass provides merchants with #HOTTAB Biz and #HOTTAB POS – a specialized POS technology solution, a comprehensive system for payment, loyal customer management, user profile analytics, and convenient financial support packages for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In addition, SoPa operates Leflair.com, Vietnam's leading lifestyle e-commerce platform, Pushkart.ph, a popular grocery delivery company in Philippines, and Handycart.vn, a leading online restaurant delivery service based in Hanoi, Vietnam. For more information, please check out: http://thesocietypass.com/.

Media Contacts:
PRecious Communications
sopa@preciouscomms.com

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

Retention Cloud Leader CleverTap Acquires Leanplum

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and MUMBAI, India, May 19, 2022 – (ACN Newswire) – CleverTap, the world's No.1 retention cloud, today announced it has signed definitive agreements to fully acquire San Francisco based Leanplum, a leading multi-channel customer engagement platform, for an undisclosed amount.

This acquisition will make CleverTap a truly global company with development centers and customer-facing and success teams across North America, Europe, Latin America, India, South East Asia and the Middle East. Combining the product stack of the two organizations, this acquisition will enhance CleverTap's capabilities and take its total customer base to over 1200 customers in more than 100 countries around the world. The deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2022.

Together CleverTap and Leanplum will work with digital brands to help increase their users' engagement, retention and lifetime value by making every user experience hyper-personalized, relevant and contextual at scale in real time. As more businesses become digital-first, brands need to serve their users with delightful moments where they are, when they want and on their preferred channel. CleverTap and Leanplum will now bring real-time hyper-personalization, A/B testing and increased scalability to its omnichannel engagement, analytics and segmentation product lines. As a result, growth and marketing teams globally will now be able to utilize the only end-to-end user engagement and retention cloud platform, enabling them to break down user communication silos and increase the overall lifetime value of each user.

"We are seeing a seismic shift in the marketing technology landscape," says Sunil Thomas, CleverTap Co-founder and Executive Chairman. "Users today demand to be treated as individuals, and this has forced brands to change how they engage with them. CleverTap and Leanplum have both purposely built for a mobile-centric omnichannel world." The acquisition, he says, combines platforms and teams to deliver the best behavior analytics, segmentation, and engagement tools that will enable digital brands to build valuable, long-term relationships with their users. "Our combined strength will be a game-changing force for user engagement, retention and monetization, creating tremendous value for our customers. I am very excited to welcome Leanplum to the CleverTap family."

"When we started Leanplum, our vision was to meet customers' real-time needs at the cutting edge of technology," says Momchil Kyurkchiev, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Leanplum. "We have succeeded in that, but as the market has matured, to fully meet the increasing demands put on brands today, we needed to bring in the best analytics, segmentation, and engagement tools, to help our customers build valuable, long-term relationships with their customers. This is why joining forces with CleverTap makes the most sense, and I am excited about the combined capabilities we will now bring to Leanplum customers worldwide."

"I am looking forward to the journey with Leanplum. This coming together with Leanplum marks a monumental moment across the marketing technology landscape," says Sidharth Malik, CleverTap Chief Executive Officer. "This bridges the gap created by multiple martech tools and customer data platforms and will meet the growing needs of user-obsessed digital brands in a much more efficient way. Our 'better together' vision is about integrating our cumulative strengths around people, process and technology to cement our position as the global leader in the user engagement and retention space. Joining forces allows us to bring advanced product and technology capabilities as brands strive to do live segmentation, anticipate user intentions and actions, automate and deploy real-time campaigns for the highest possible conversions, all from one single dashboard."

Image: Sunil Thomas, CleverTap Co-founder and Executive Chairman
https://www.acnnewswire.com/docs/Multimedia/Low_CleverTap2022519.jpg

About CleverTap

CleverTap is the modern, integrated, retention cloud that empowers digital consumer brands to increase customer retention and lifetime value. For brands that understand and value user retention, CleverTap drives context and individualization with the help of a unified and deep data layer, AI/ML-powered insights and automation. Customers worldwide representing over 10,000 apps, including Vodafone Idea, SonyLIV, Daimler, Gojek, Carousell, and Premier League, trust CleverTap to achieve their retention and engagement goals, growing their long term revenue. Backed by leading venture capital firms, including Sequoia India, Tiger Global Management, and Accel, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Mumbai, Singapore, and Dubai. For more information, visit clevertap.com or follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contact:
Sony Shetty
CleverTap
sony@clevertap.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements in this press release may represent CleverTap's belief in connection with future events and may be forward-looking statements, or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. CleverTap cautions that such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties that could amount in the actual result being absolutely different from the results anticipated by the statements mentioned in the press release. Factors such as the development of general economic conditions affecting our business, future market conditions, our ability to maintain cost advantages, uncertainty with respect to earnings, corporate actions, client concentration, reduced demand, liability or damages in our service contracts, unusual catastrophic loss events, war, political instability, changes in government policies or laws, legal restrictions impacting our business, impact of pandemic, epidemic, any natural calamity and other factors that are naturally beyond our control, changes in the capital markets and other circumstances may cause the actual events or results to be materially different, from those anticipated by such statements. CleverTap does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or updated or revised status of such statements. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will CleverTap and its affiliate companies be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release or any related damages.

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

CleverTap Appoints Honey Bajaj as SVP & Global Chief of Consumer Experience

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and MUMBAI, India, May 5, 2022 – (ACN Newswire) – CleverTap, the world's leading retention cloud, today added to its core leadership team with the appointment of Honey Bajaj as SVP & Global Chief of Consumer Experience. In this position, Bajaj will pioneer CleverTap's extensive program to help companies reimagine customer experience and realize the "Art of Possible".

CleverTap Appoints Honey Bajaj as SVP & Global Chief of Consumer Experience

Bajaj is a design strategist, an innovation leader and a social entrepreneur with extensive work in India and the U.S. Her ability to problem solve and identify patterns in human behavior has earned her multiple prestigious awards and recognition as an Innovation Global Shaper and Inventor of the Year (2016). She is also a dual degree holder with a Master's Degree in Engineering and Management and a Master's in Sustainability Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Design and Innovation Methodologies in the Digital World.

Before joining the CleverTap Leadership Team, Honey built an innovation pipeline for several Fortune 500 companies, including Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures, Disney, Microsoft Research, MIT Media Lab and Tata Group, one of India's largest and highly profitable conglomerates. There she developed detailed market segmentation frameworks based on purchase behavior to orchestrate product launches and go-to-market strategies.

Bajaj has also dedicated her talent in designing for scale and impact to serving the needs of government bodies, financial institutions and healthcare organizations. Her work, which spans over a decade, has impacted over 50 million lives.

"As we scale CleverTap into a global category creator for "Retention Cloud", we realize that our customers are eager to co-create experiences that will fuel growth and the future of their own digital businesses. For this reason, we are expanding our leadership team with a new appointment that benefits the most important stakeholder: our customers' customers," Vikrant Chowdhary, CleverTap Chief Growth Officer, explains.

"From fintech to ecommerce, and from on-demand Super Apps to media and streaming services, companies need the inspiration and tangible examples of the "Art of Possible" to unleash human-centered design thinking, unlock new perspectives and drive powerful momentum and positive results for all stakeholders." This outcome, he continues, is "inextricably linked with our customers' abilities to realize and hyper-personalize omnichannel journeys for their customers."

"I have always focused on designing for impact and inventing for scale by contextualizing tech for the consumers. The truth is, no matter what we think we're doing, we are all in the customer-experience business. Before you can accomplish it, you need to envision it. The digital behavior and expectations of customers is evolving faster than most industries are able to deliver. I am looking forward to my journey with CleverTap to embed human-centered principles and design thinking into a series of initiatives and programs," Honey Bajaj says. "These efforts will allow digital-first companies to co-create and simulate digital journeys that will fuel growth through superior customer experience and will enable CleverTap's customers to realize their consumer journeys in a more seamless and contextual manner as the lines of the digital and omnichannel world are no longer separated."

About CleverTap

CleverTap is a modern, integrated Retention Cloud that empowers digital consumer brands to increase customer retention and lifetime value. For brands that understand and value user retention, CleverTap drives context and individualization with the help of a unified and deep data layer, AI/ML-powered insights & automation. Customers worldwide representing over 10,000 apps, including Vodafone Idea, SonyLIV, Daimler, Gojek, Carousell, and Premier League, trust CleverTap to achieve their retention and engagement goals, growing their long term revenue.

CleverTap is backed by leading venture capital firms, including Sequoia India, Tiger Global Management, and Accel. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with offices in Mumbai, Singapore, and Dubai. For more information, visit clevertap.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media Contact:
Sony Shetty
PR Director
CleverTap
sony@clevertap.com

Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements in this press release may represent CleverTap's belief in connection with future events and may be forward-looking statements, or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. CleverTap cautions that such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties that could amount in the actual result being absolutely different from the results anticipated by the statements mentioned in the press release. Factors such as the development of general economic conditions affecting our business, future market conditions, our ability to maintain cost advantages, uncertainty with respect to earnings, corporate actions, client concentration, reduced demand, liability or damages in our service contracts, unusual catastrophic loss events, war, political instability, changes in government policies or laws, legal restrictions impacting our business, impact of pandemic, epidemic, any natural calamity and other factors that are naturally beyond our control, changes in the capital markets and other circumstances may cause the actual events or results to be materially different, from those anticipated by such statements. CleverTap does not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or updated or revised status of such statements. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will CleverTap and its affiliate companies be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release or any related damages.

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

The Future of Video in India is Bright, as Video Becomes Increasingly Democratized and Consumers Have It All

BANGALORE, INDIA, May 4, 2022 – (ACN Newswire) – The Asia Video Industry Association held its third Future of Video India virtual conference to much optimism as industry leaders remained bullish on India's long-term view, after its fifth straight quarter of economic expansion, with all round economic recovery and an economic rebound that is much broader based and across multiple sectors.

Mihir Shah, Vice President, India, Media Partners Asia, opened the conference with an outlook on India's video market, which showed a sharp rebound in the TV advertising market, after a depressed 2020. The market grew 37% last year and stood at U$S3.8 billion now. While the broader Pay TV industry continued to see a lot of pressure, Free to Air revenues have surged, and the pandemic has resulted in the rapid adoption and consumption of Connected TV especially in the urban centres. With a Total Video Market worth US$12 billion and growing at 5% CAGR in the next 5 years to US$20, the AVOD market was also predicted to remain buoyant and triple in the next five years, with SVOD doubling as well.

This optimism for the market continued with the keynote conversation with Sunil Rayan, Head, Disney+ Hotstar India. With the mission to making the streamer as accessible to as many people as possible, Disney+ Hotstar India had made a significant shift to an SVOD offering while maintaining their freemium ad-supported model, which continued to be much larger than SVOD. "We've had significant growth in the SVOD side. But India is a highly price sensitive market and AVOD gives scale so we are always trying to balance the two," said Rayan. Their content offering had also evolved into 'cricket plus entertainment', with a shift both in investment and quality of entertainment that is digitally native. Rayan was also of the view that the streaming market was highly vibrant, and there was certainly room for multiple operators. However, as the ecosystem developed, the content needed to be targeted at specific audiences, and while consolidation was already happening, it will continue to evolve.

Megha Tata, Managing Director, South Asia, Warner Bros. Discovery, was also positive on the outlook for both linear TV and OTT. "There are multiple scenarios which are evolving in the country each India needs to be catered to in a different way," said Tata. This was also not just about pricing and product but also content. "It's not an 'either or' market yet, but an 'and' market, both can survive and will survive," added Tata. But how the share of wallet would play out continued to be an evolution every day. Gourav Rakshit, COO, Viacom18 Digital Ventures, added that the holy grail was to create habit in your consumers. "Real estate on the phone is small, real estate in the mind is even smaller," said Rakshit. Sharing her views on the road ahead, Tata also pointed out that revenue and monetization today was still coming from linear, and funding all the investment that was needed in digital. "We need to take care of the now or there is no future," said Tata.

The future was certainly going to be made brighter with the advent of 5G, as the session's panellists spoke about the challenges that 5G alleviated and the opportunities it presented. Manoj Gurnani, CTO & Head of Strategy, India, Nokia, shared that a new generation of technology was going to bring more capabilities and more efficiencies. With 5G bringing on fixed wireless capabilities, it was going to be a great enabler, which would lead to the enhancement of the quality of experience. Mahendra Nath Vyas, Executive Director, Planetcast Media Services, also added that while AR/VR and gaming were the future technology that would ride on the 5G networks, there was also a huge opportunity to unlock content creation in remote areas with 5G.

However, content creation in itself had also evolved with OTT. Nimisha Pandey, Chief Content Officer, Hindi Originals, ZEE5, shared that OTT had enabled the content creators and the entire ecosystem to create content for small taste clusters, with the decision making no longer based on the mass audience. The biggest challenge faced by content creators now was the need to evolve at the pace that the audience was evolving, as audiences were evolving too fast and keeping in synch with the pace was the biggest challenge. Ultimately, Pandey also believed that it all began with a great story, and it was important to give value to both passion and craft.

Avinash Kaul, CEO, Network18, Managing Director, A+E Networks TV18, summed up the optimism for the industry in his closing keynote. With video now having been democratized, consumers have never had it better. And with the online video ecosystem having opened up, funding and content had also poured in, with money coming into the ecosystem from all sources. With a greater investment in technology and data, content was also getting shaped because of analytics and there was also a new future for data driven companies to tap into funding. All of this would have led to better content all round, and even tailored content for cohorts of audiences. From a consumer's point of view, it was now utopian. "The future of video has always been bright and will continue to shine brighter and brighter," said Kaul.

The Future of Video India is generously supported by Bharucha & Partners, Brightcove, Google Cloud, Netflix, Synamedia and Xandr.

About the Asia Video Industry Association

The Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) is the trade association for the video industry and ecosystem in Asia Pacific. It serves to make the video industry stronger and healthier through promoting the common interests of its members. AVIA is the interlocutor for the industry with governments across the region, leads the fight against video piracy through its Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) and provides insight into the video industry through reports and conferences aimed to support a vibrant video industry.

For media enquiries and additional background please contact:

Charmaine Kwan
Head of Marketing and Communications
Email: charmaine@avia.org
Website: www.avia.org
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/asiavideoia
Twitter: @AsiaVideoIA

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

NextPlay Technologies Acquires Assets and IP of Casual Game Publisher, goGame, to Integrate its HotPlay In-Game Advertising Technology

SUNRISE, FL, Apr 20, 2022 – (ACN Newswire) – NextPlay Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXTP), a technology solutions company building a digital business ecosystem for digital advertisers, consumers, video gamers and travelers, has completed its previously announced acquisition of gaming assets and IP from goGame, a Singapore-based mobile casual video game publisher and technology company.

The acquired assets include goPlay, a new-gen game publishing platform featuring a tournament system, chat, payment, and 37 casual games ranging from arcade to strategy. NextPlay plans to complete the integration of its HotPlay in-game advertising (IGA) technology into the 37 goPlay games by year-end.

NextPlay also acquired from goGame a perpetual license to goPay, a payment aggregator that offers game developers multiple ways to more easily collect and process user payments. This includes carrier billing, over the counter, e-voucher, bank transfer and e-wallet. The goPay technology further extends NextPlay's existing payment services, offering access to a wider array of global payment providers.

"The key value for us in this acquisition is how the goPlay platform enables gamers to form a community within its ecosystem," noted NextPlay co-chief executive Nithinan (Jessie) Boonyawattanapisut. "We see this providing a ready-made platform to launch our HotPlay IGA technology, with this leading to new revenue streams and expansion of our reach to users in many additional countries around the world."

As a fully owned brand, goPlay brings Nextplay:

– Web destination for players to gather and engage in social play across a catalogue of well-crafted, hyper casual games.
– Set of new technologies and APIs, such as social graph, chat, and game tournament backend services, for integration into the company's advertising and game services offering and delivered via its core game software development kit across web, set-top box, and mobile platforms.
– New revenue stream through goPay payments and ability to harness exciting new partnerships in key areas of NextPlay's broader market focus, such as NFT gaming and cryptocurrency.

goPlay and goPay offer a core set of compelling features that are perfect for a wide variety of platform partners who will be able to sign up under an Open Beta this summer. The goGame offerings will become part of the NextPlay suite of customizable products that can be tailored to fit the individual needs and capabilities of B2B and B2C operators across the globe.

NextPlay also plans to introduce goPlay game users to its NextFinancial fintech-oriented products, including crypto banking, micro-lending, and potential insurance services. Across each of these offerings, NextPlay would also have full access to goGame's payment processing gateway goPay.

For further details about the NextPlay's asset and IP purchase from goGame, please see the NextPlay Form 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov, and also available in the nextplaytechnologies.com investor relations section.

About goGame

Go Game Pte Ltd is a game company headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Founded in July 2015 by industry veteran David Ng, the company first made headlines for securing major investments from gaming giant SEGA and venture capitalist Incubate Fund Japan. The 200-strong team has collaborated on projects with SEGA, Disney, Colopl and Viacom. For more information, visit gogame.net

About NextPlay Technologies

NextPlay Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXTP) is a technology solutions company offering games, in-game advertising, crypto-banking, connected TV and travel booking services to consumers and corporations within a growing worldwide digital ecosystem. NextPlay's engaging products and services utilize innovative AdTech, Artificial Intelligence and Fintech solutions to leverage the strengths and channels of our existing and acquired technologies. For more information about NextPlay Technologies, visit www.nextplaytechnologies.com and follow us on Twitter @NextPlayTech and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of, and within the safe harbor provided by the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements give our current expectations, opinions, beliefs or forecasts of future events and performance. A statement identified by the use of forward-looking words including "will," "may," "expects," "projects," "anticipates," "plans," "believes," "estimate," "should," and certain of the other foregoing statements may be deemed forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future activities and results to be materially different from those suggested or described in this news release. Factors that may cause such a difference include risks and uncertainties related to our need for additional capital which may not be available on commercially acceptable terms, if at all, which raises questions about our ability to continue as a going concern; the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had, and is expected to continue to have, a significant material adverse impact on the travel industry and our business, operating results and liquidity; amounts owed to us by third parties which may not be paid timely, if at all; certain amounts we owe under outstanding indebtedness which are secured by substantially all of our assets and penalties we may incur in connection therewith; the fact that we have significant indebtedness, which could adversely affect our business and financial condition; uncertainty and illiquidity in credit and capital markets which may impair our ability to obtain credit and financing on acceptable terms and may adversely affect the financial strength of our business partners; the officers and directors of the Company have the ability to exercise significant influence and voting control over the Company; stockholders may be diluted significantly through our efforts to obtain financing, satisfy obligations and complete acquisitions through the issuance of additional shares of our common or preferred stock; if we are unable to adapt to changes in technology, our business could be harmed; our travel business depends substantially on property owners and managers renewing their listings; if we do not adequately protect our intellectual property, our ability to compete could be impaired; our long-term success depends, in part, on our ability to expand our property owner, manager and traveler bases outside of the United States and, as a result, our business is susceptible to risks associated with international operations; unfavorable changes in, or interpretations of, government regulations or taxation of the evolving ALR, Internet and e-commerce industries which could harm our operating results; risks associated with the operations of, the business of, and the regulation of our recent acquisitions of Longroot Holding (Thailand) Company Limited (Longroot), HotPlay Enterprise Limited (HotPlay) and NextBank International (formerly IFEB); the market in which we participate being highly competitive, and because of that we may be unable to compete successfully with our current or future competitors; our potential inability to adapt to changes in technology, which could harm our business; the volatility of our stock price; risks associated with the integration of the operations of HotPlay, Longroot and IFEB, which acquisitions we recently competed; the fact that we may be subject to liability for the activities of our property owners and managers, which could harm our reputation and increase our operating costs; and that we have incurred significant losses to date and require additional capital which may not be available on commercially acceptable terms, if at all. More information about the risks and uncertainties faced by NextPlay are detailed from time to time in NextPlay's periodic reports filed with the SEC, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, under the headings "Risk Factors". These reports are available at www.sec.gov. Other unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on the Company's future results and/or could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. The Company takes no obligation to update or correct its own forward-looking statements, except as required by law, or those prepared by third parties that are not paid for by the Company. If we update one or more forward-looking statements, no inference should be drawn that we will make additional updates with respect to those or other forward-looking statements.

Source: NextPlay Technologies, Inc.

Company Contact:
NextPlay Technologies
Richard Marshall
Director of Corporate Development
Tel (954) 888-9779
rmarshall@monakergroup.com

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

Bussr to Reach $1 Billion in Sales on Its Mobility Platform in 2022

SINGAPORE, Sep 2, 2021 – (ACN Newswire) – Bussr offers a mobility payment solutions platform for businesses and users, powering payments infrastructure for the mobility market using the latest booking and ticketing innovations. More than 800 businesses have already signed on to use Bussr's platform, 100 of which, amounting to US$150 million in annual sales, will go live in 2021.

Bussr believes that every trip and transaction should empower people to move and connect, with the smallest carbon footprint possible. Every Bussr trip considers distance and environmental impact as well as the ability to reduce urban congestion.

Bussr is also in the advanced discussion stage with the Indonesian Government to digitize the metro transit ecosystem, with an expected 10 million daily users.

Bussr's innovative offerings extend to disrupting the last-mile logistics space; delivery brands and retailers will have a simple, automated way of integrating and adding the most relevant payment options to their business model, delighting their customers with affordable same-day delivery.

The mobility sector is an immense $2 trillion market that still relies on paper cash, fax machines, and manila envelopes. By 2050, the global population is projected to increase to around 9.8 billion, with more than twice as many people living in urban areas than in rural settings. The need for innovation in the mobility and logistics payments sector is clear.

"We are tackling a massive $2 trillion market, developing modern software for an industry that still relies on woefully outmoded paper-based systems. We bring security, efficiency, and joy to a paper-based pillar of the global market economy. We want to empower mobility and logistics partners with the right tools for their users. Mobility providers will be able to offer seamless payment options across the entire mobility ecosystem," said Hussein, CEO of Bussr.

Bussr's payment solutions platform allows mobility businesses of all types to have bespoke booking and ticketing solutions for their respective markets. For operators, brands, and retailers, getting onboard with Bussr is a near-effortless three-step process:
1. Get your branded mobile app and website
2. Add your product with prices and descriptions
3. Choose your payment options and start selling

The overarching theme of efficiency runs deeper — Bussr understands that its responsibilities will ultimately impact people and the planet alike. This means that every trip and transaction should empower people to move and connect, all the while with the smallest carbon footprint possible. Every trip considers distance and environmental impact as well as its ability to reduce urban congestion.

With the complex goal of changing the way people connect across cities and countries, Bussr benefits from its strong leadership trio: tech entrepreneur Hussein Abdelkarim, former Rocket Internet founder and CEO, I.M. Shousha, veteran technology consultant and co-founder, and Ajay Bhandari, former Microsoft Chief Architect, CTO, and co-founder.

It's no surprise that Bussr promises an exciting ride ahead for all on board. To learn more about Bussr, and its goal to digitize mobility and connect the world, join the dialogue at www.bussr.com.

Contact:
HA, Bussr Technologies
E: press@bussr.com
U: https://www.bussr.com

Copyright 2021 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

Boku launches M1ST, the world’s largest mobile payments network, connecting Southeast Asia Digital Consumers to global merchants

SINGAPORE, Aug 18, 2021 – (ACN Newswire) – Boku Inc. (AIM: BOKU) today announced the launch of the M1ST (aka Mobile First), the world's largest mobile payments network. The M1ST Payments Network features an unrivalled 330+ mobile payment methods, including mobile wallets, direct carrier billing, and real-time payments schemes, reaching 5.7 billion mobile payment accounts in 90 countries – all through a single integration.

By 2022, middle class in Southeast Asia is expected to wield over US$300 billion in disposable income. The region's middle class is expected to double to 51 per cent in 2030 from 24 per cent in 2020 – or from 135 million people to 334 million people. According to the World Bank, 45% of consumers globally use mobile wallets vs. just 18% that use credit cards for payments. In Boku's 2021 Mobile Wallets Report showed that Southeast Asia will become the fastest growing mobile wallet region in the world: the number of mobile wallets in use by SEA consumers is projected to increase by nearly 25.5% to reach 439.7 million mobile wallets in use by the end of 2025.

"In a Confidence Index survey, 52 per cent of the merchants in SEA experienced a high level of growth during H1 2021 and 70 per cent of these merchants are expecting additional growth of more than 10 per cent in Q3 2021. This shows that despite the challenging times, digital consumers continue to make purchases digitally. The launch of M1ST will not only allow SEA merchants and digital consumers to connect within the region, but also to global markets seamlessly, with a payment method that is useful and convenient to them," said Loke Hwee Wong, Vice President and General Manager, APAC at Boku.

However, mobile payment acceptance for global merchants is highly complex, especially due to the extreme fragmentation of mobile payment methods. M1ST solves a number of these challenges so that merchants can easily accept mobile payments, globally, and at scale, including:

– Standardization – M1ST removes the complexity of disparate technical, legal and contractual considerations, simplifying 330+ payment methods into a single, scheme-like network.
– Digitally Native – M1ST enabled payments are built to support the 0-tap subscriptions and 1-tap checkout transactions that enable new, online business models.
– Future-Proofed – By 2025, nearly 60% of consumers globally are projected to be using mobile wallets; the M1ST Network follows market demand to maximize merchant acceptance.
– Global Settlement – M1ST delivers merchants a single, global settlement, eliminating the complexity of local taxes, foreign exchange, and cash repatriation.
– Local Legal Infrastructure – Through payment licenses and local entities, M1ST is capable of accepting regulated payments in nearly 50 countries.

M1ST is designed to eliminate the difficulty of mobile payment acceptance so that merchants can accept mobile payments more quickly, at lower cost, and focus on building world-class user experiences that drive long-term, valuable relationships with their customers.

"We've seen a fundamental shift of consumer purchasing power from west to east, from established to emerging markets, and from credit cards to mobile payments. Today, we're launching the M1ST Network to enable global merchants to acquire, monetize, and retain mobile-first consumers," said Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku. "For merchants to capitalize on the massive potential of mobile-first consumers, they need to accept the payment methods they have and prefer, which are increasingly behind glass screens, not rectangular pieces of plastic. We've spent the past decade delivering new customers to our merchants through mobile payments. Now that mobile payments have overtaken credit cards globally, merchant acceptance has moved from a competitive advantage to a strategic imperative."

About Boku

Boku Inc. (AIM: BOKU) is the fintech powering the world's largest mobile payments network, M1ST (Mobile First). With 45% of global consumers using mobile payment methods to buy goods online, compared to 18% using credit cards, the future of commerce is mobile-first. Boku's technology platform helps the world's most demanding merchants attract, convert, and retain customers using mobile payments. By turning payments infrastructure into a source of sustainable competitive advantage, Boku safely activates a range of new merchant business models – from bundling to subscriptions.

Boku's platform is used in 90 countries with more than a billion verified transactions in 2020, contributing more than $8 billion to the digital economy. Customers that trust Boku to simplify sign-up, acquire new paying users and prevent fraud include global leaders such as Apple, DAZN, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Sony, Spotify and Tencent.

Boku Inc. was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in London, UK, with offices in Brazil, China, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the US. To learn more about Boku please visit: https://www.boku.com

Boku in Asia

In Asia, Boku's payment partners for Mobile Wallets include: AliPay, Dana, GCash, GoPay, GrabPay, KakaoPay, LINE Pay, Ovo, PayMaya, PayPay, Toss, Touch 'n Go, Truemoney
Boku also partners with payment partners to offer Direct Carrier Billing: AIS, BSNL, Celcom, Digi, dtac, Globe, Indosat Ooredoo, Jio, Korea Telecom, KDDI, LG U+, Maxis, M1, NTT Docomo, StarHub, Singtel, Softbank, SK Telecom, Smart, Smartfren, Tata Docomo, Telkomsel, Three, TrueMove, Vodafone, XL (amongst others)

Enquiries:
PRecious Communications for Boku, Inc.
Singapore/Asia Pacific: Clarence Lim, boku@preciouscomms.com

Copyright 2021 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com

LG Uplus Kiosks Go Touchless with Kardome’s Voice Technology

Tel Aviv, Israel, Aug 10, 2021 – (ACN Newswire) – Kardome today announced it has contracted with LG Uplus to install its Voice Activation Software in the mobile service provider's store kiosks. Kardome is excited to partner with LG Uplus to provide its customers with secure voice interaction in its kiosk digital assistants.

The voice technology startup will install its voice activation technology in 2,000 LG Uplus store kiosks throughout South Korea by the end of the year. LG Uplus is one of South Korea's largest mobile service providers.

The development of voice technology is shifting into high gear, with consumers demanding touchless solutions due to hygienic concerns during the pandemic.

Privacy and security are also a concern when using voice recognition software in public spaces. Kardome allays these concerns with its unique location-based voice user interface (VUI).

"We are proud to see our voice activation technology employed in LG Uplus kiosks," says Dani Cherkassky, Kardome CEO and cofounder. "Our voice user interface software will give the company's customers private, secure voice interactions in any environment."

Kardome's VUI technology provides a personalized digital experience using parametric or directional loudspeakers. The speakers transmit the digital voice assistant's responses only to the relevant customer standing before the kiosk.

The location-based source separation technology enables this secure and private voice interaction, capturing only the relevant customer's speech, regardless of background noise or passerby.

About Kardome

Kardome is an Israeli-based voice technology startup. The company's innovative location-based, noise-reduction VUI technology gives clear, real-time voice command input and audio output in any environment. Kardome's goal is to solve end-user frustrations with speech recognition and voice command devices.

About LG Uplus

LG Uplus Corp is a South Korean telecommunications and Mobile phone service provider controlled by the LG Group, one of the country's largest family-owned business conglomerates.

More information: http://bit.ly/LGUplusKardome
Video demonstration of Kardome's Voice technology in LG Uplus store kiosks in Gwangju, South Korea https://youtu.be/VjsSoOn3e4k

Contact:
Laura Tate, Kardome VP Marketing
+1 323-205-6436
Laura.tate@Kardome.com

Copyright 2021 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. http://www.acnnewswire.com