With $3B expected in 2021, Singapore is becoming a fintech capital

Welcome to TechCrunch+ Friday

Bret Taylor is on a roll: On Monday, he became the chair of Twitter’s board, and a day later, Salesforce made him its co-CEO and co-chair.

Enterprise reporter Ron Miller looked back at Taylor’s career to better understand how a one-time Google product manager ended up co-leading one of the world’s most valuable companies.

To get a fuller perspective, he interviewed four analysts:

• Liz Herbert, VP and principal analyst, Forrester Research
• Holger Mueller, analyst, Constellation Research
• Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst, CRM Essentials
• Jason Wong, analyst, Gartner

Leary said Taylor’s elevation likely signals that Salesforce founder Marc Benioff is getting ready to transition “into the next phase of his life, whatever that may be.”

Mueller, however, said power-sharing only succeeds “when the senior partner relinquishes responsibilities. That will be a first for Benioff, and we will see how this will pan out.”

Thanks very much for reading, and have an excellent weekend.

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

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“That’s a decline of 19.1%,” writes Alex Wilhelm in The Exchange. “Or, 90 basis points under the 20% required for a particular asset … to reach technical bear-market territory.”

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With $3B expected in 2021, Singapore is becoming a fintech capital

Singapore’s population is under 5 million, but according to KPMG, fintech investment in the nation-state will reach $3B this year, a significant chunk of the $42B global total.

By comparison, investors flowed $4.8B to Canadian fintech startups in the first half of the year.

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Looking back, a question Alex Wilhelm asked before trading began seems quite prescient:

“What are investors seeing in the company to make them confident enough to drop billions into its accounts and bid its shares higher?

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“It’s a convenient way for employers to offer their teams opportunities for continuous personal development, tailored to an extent to their interests and priorities.”

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A VIE sets up an offshore company that allows non-Chinese citizens to get around restrictions on foreign ownership.

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