Sea Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest internet firm by revenue and market value, has laid off 7,000+ employees, or ~10% of its staff, over the past six months (Juro Osawa/The Information)

Olivia Poh / Bloomberg:
Google, Temasek, and Bain report: Southeast Asia online spending will rise ~20% in 2022 to $200B, down from 38% in 2021, as digital adoption growth normalizes  —  Growth in Southeast Asia’s internet economy is slowing after years of expansion, showing that even emerging digital markets aren’t immune to economic headwinds.

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Singapore-based Fazz, whose business accounts offer payment, savings, and credit features, raised a $100M Series C, including $75M in equity and $25M in debt  —  Fazz, the Southeast Asian digital financial services group created by the merger of PayFazz and Xfers, announced today that it has raised …

Reuters:
Sources: Sea, whose market cap has gone from $200B+ to ~$28B since Oct. 2021, shuts some Latin American operations and cuts hundreds of gaming jobs in Shanghai  —  Singapore-based Sea Ltd’s (SE.N) e-commerce arm Shopee will exit Argentina and shut local operations in Chile …

Casey Newton / @caseynewton:
[Thread] Sources and chats in anonymous workplace app Blind: Twitter is asking some laid off employees to come back, including for “some Android and iOS help”  —  Multiple sources and Twitter Blind chats now saying that the company has begun to reach out to some people it laid off yesterday asking them to come back. Whoops! 🥴

Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
Some laid-off tech workers on H-1B visas from Meta, Shopify, Twitter, and other tech companies say they didn’t get adequate immigration support from companies  —  Some former tech employees on work visas in the US are experiencing an existential crisis: “Is it worth staying here for a job and country that doesn’t care about you?”

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft reports Q1 Windows OEM revenue down 15% YoY, devices revenue up 2% YoY, Xbox hardware revenue up 13%, and Xbox content and services revenue down 3%  —  It’s a new financial year for Microsoft, and the Windows and Xbox maker has just posted the first quarter of its 2023 financial results today.