Thailand’s LINE MAN Wongnai, which provides food delivery and runs an e-commerce platform for businesses, raised a $265M series B led by GIC at a $1B+ valuation (Anuchit Nguyen/Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
An interview with the co-founder of Vietnamese unicorn VNG, which offers games and services like Zalo, a messaging app that had 74M+ MAUs in Vietnam in February  —  A Vietnamese internet startup that’s successfully defended its home market of 100 million people against global giants like Facebook is now going into attack mode.

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
PhotoRoom, which is bringing generative AI to its photo editing app for e-commerce vendors and SMBs, raised a $19M Series A; the app has 7M MAUs, 40M+ downloads  —  French startup PhotoRoom has raised a $19 million Series A funding round.  The company develops a popular photo editing app for e-commerce vendors and small businesses.

Bettina Makalintal / Eater:
Instagram food photography is becoming more realistic, driven by generational changes, more diverse food creators, and a frustration with the curation culture  —  The food blogger aesthetic has given way to something more realistic and DIY: Laissez-faire Instagram food is here

Tony Lystra / GeekWire:
Seattle-based Swiftly, which offers branded apps and retail software to grocery stores, raised a $100M Series C at a $1B+ valuation after raising $100M in March  —  Retail software provider Swiftly raised $100 million in a Series C funding round, helping the company become the latest Seattle-area startup …

Shaji Mathew / Bloomberg:
Saudi Arabian food delivery service Jahez agrees to acquire local rival The Chefz for ~$173M in a cash and stock deal  —  Saudi food delivery firm Jahez agreed to acquire The Chefz in a cash and stock deal, almost a year after Delivery Hero SE’s attempt to buy the firm was thwarted by the local competition watchdog.

Hasan Chowdhury / Insider:
Northzone, the European VC firm that backed Spotify and Klarna, has raised a €1B fund, its largest to date, and will allocate ~40% to later-stage investments  —  – Northzone has raised over 1 billion euros (around $1 billion) for a fresh new fund.  — The new fund will be used …