Hong Kong-based XanPool, a cross-border payments infrastructure provider for both crypto and fiat currencies, raised $41M in Q2 2022 at a $400M valuation (Jonathan Burgos/Forbes)

Zinnia Lee / Forbes:
Hong Kong-based digital payments startup Reap, which is developing tools for Web3 companies, raised a $40M Series A led by Acorn, Arcadia, and HashKey  —  Reap, a digital payment company based in Hong Kong, has netted $40 million in a funding round aimed at developing infrastructure …

Newley Purnell / Wall Street Journal:
Hong Kong officials and legislators criticize Google over a pro-democracy song, “Glory to Hong Kong”, appearing among the top results for the national anthem  —  Officials and lawmakers call on company to alter its results page to show China’s national anthem instead of a song made popular by antigovernment protesters

Bradley Saacks / Semafor:
Sources: Sam Bankman-Fried and most of his inner circle are still in the Bahamas but many senior FTX executives left for Hong Kong and elsewhere in recent days  —  Bradley is a Business & Finance reporter for Semafor, joining us from Business Insider.  Sign up for Semafor Business to get his scoops and coverage of the industry.

Kenrick Cai / Forbes:
Runway, one of the two startups behind Stable Diffusion, raised a $50M Series C led by Felicis Ventures; sources: Runway’s valuation is $500M, and ARR is ~$1M  —  Runway ML, one of the two startups behind the popular AI text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, has raised new funding at a $500 million valuation, Forbes has learned.

Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Ping, which helps remote workers and freelancers collect international payments in both fiat and crypto, has raised a $15M seed from investors including YC  —  If the global pandemic taught us anything, it’s that you could work from anywhere as long as you had a computer and good wireless signal.

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez / Fortune:
Stripe debuts a customizable fiat-to-crypto payments widget for Web3 devs to directly embed into their apps; Stripe to handle KYC checks, fraud, and compliance  —  DAVID PAUL MORRIS—BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES  —  Payments processing company Stripe on Thursday announced a so-called …