Tencent reinvested in the buy now, pay later sector, backing Alma in a round consisting of $131m in equity and $108m in debt financing.

Data analytics platform developer Starburst raised $250m in a Salesforce-backed round valuing it above $3.3bn while SoftBank co-led a $140m round for small molecule drug developer Ventus.

Prosus Ventures co-led a round for the online share trading service, one of a wave of startups bringing investment tools to emerging markets.

The blockchain scaling technology developer’s token sale attracted SoftBank, Animoca Brands, Alameda Research, Bitfinex, Voodoo, Scopely, Unacademy and Celsius.

Digital bank operator Tonik Financial raised $131m in a Mizuho Bank-led round while e-commerce software provider Shopware secured $100m from PayPal and Carlyle.

Venture firm Infinity Ventures Crypto recruited Animoca Brands and Circle on its way to closing the oversubscribed fund.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a $300m round for business-to-business marketplace ElasticRun and co-led blockchain creation platform developer Aleo's $200m series B.

Alphabet’s growth equity arm promoted several team members in 2021 including new general partner Jesse Wedler, Jackson Georges, James Luo, Jamie Rosen, Jeremy Zhu and Nina Gerson.

Financial services provider Tribal raised $60m in a SoftBank-led series B round while Credit Saison invested $30m in a round for peer-to-peer lender Julo sized at up to $60m.

Coinbase Ventures took part in a series A round for the cryptocurrency custody and settlement technology developer as efforts to overcome bottlenecks within blockchain networks intensify.