San Francisco-based Omni shuts shop

Omni, a San Francisco-based rental marketplace announced that it is shutting shop after struggling to work out the realistic economic scalability of equipment rentals and physical on-demand storage spaces. The startup had raised $35 million which enabled it to offer a convenient service to its customers but at an unsustainable cost to the company.

“We’ll be winding down operations at Omni and closing the platform by the end of this year. We are proud of what we built and incredibly thankful for everyone who supported our vision over the past five and a half years,” said a company spokesperson.

Indian financial service provider Paytm nabs $1 billion in funding

Paytm, an Indian payment platform, announced that it has raised $1 billion in Series G funding. The round was led by U.S. asset manager T. Rowe Price and saw participation from existing investors Ant Financials (contributed $400 million), SoftBank Vision Fund (contributed $200 million), and Discovery Capital. The latest round of funding brings Paytm’s valuation to $16 billion.

“This new investment by our current and new investors is a reaffirmation of our commitment to serve Indians with new-age financial services,” Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and Chief Executive of Paytm said in a statement.

Taiwan-based Appier raises $80M

Appier, a Taiwan-based startup has raised $80 million to build AI-powered marketing and advertising tools. The Series D investor base includes TGVest Capital, HOPU-Arm Innovation Fund (SoftBank owns Arm), Temasek’s Pavilion Capital, Insignia Venture Partners, JAFCO Investment, and UMC Capital.