Singaporean AI-driven food ingredient profiler ProfilePrint has invested in Brazilian image recognition firm Csmart, while Grab has teamed up with ZaloPay in Vietnam.
Swiss coffee firm Farm to Roaster co-invests in Csmart
ProfilePrint, a Singapore-based AI-driven predictive and prescriptive food ingredient provider, has co-invested in Csmart, a Brazil-based developer of AI-powered image recognition technologies for green coffee grading, per an announcement.
The Singapore-based firm co-invested with Swiss coffee firm Farm to Roaster in Csmart, whose latest image-recognition green-grading machine-learning technology can rapidly scan a sample of green coffee beans and accurately identify defect count within minutes.
One of the main benefits of this technology is that it cuts down on the time and resource inefficiencies caused by sending green samples back and forth across the globe.
ProfilePrint founder and CEO Alan Lai said Csmart’s image recognition technology provides additional key data points for global ProfilePrint Solution.
“It also increases the range and accuracy of our prediction capability, empowering buyers and sellers across the supply chain to increase productivity and significantly reduce carbon footprint,” Lai added.
Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.
ZaloPay users can tap Grab e-wallet
Users of ZaloPay, the financial services arm of internet firm VNG, will now be able to use the e-wallet through the Grab application, following a partnership deal between the two, according to a statement.
This means Grab users will also be able to choose ZaloPay as a payment method for services such as booking a card, ordering food, online shopping, and parcel delivery, in addition to the other payment services available on Grab.
ZaloPay has already partnered with Visa, Mastercard, and nearly 40 banks in Vietnam. It is also used by Zalo, a messaging app with 71 million users in the country.
Hanh Nguyen, deputy CEO at Grab in Vietnam, said both Grab and ZaloPay will jointly leverage each other’s ecosystem to strengthen and share their financial technology capabilities.