There’s a lot of VC money in, um, money

Hey, this is Vlad in Tokyo. It looks like a world of digital money is finally arriving (and I don't mean Bitcoin), but first…

Today's top tech news:

China's crackdown on video games erased $60 billion in market value
Hackers breached the UN's computer networks
Microsoft put its return-to-office plan on hold indefinitely

Regardless of whether you agree with El Salvador that Bitcoin is the future, the present very much belongs to fiat currencies.

The most in-demand startups among private investors are all, in one form or another, focused on digitizing existing money structures. Whether it's person-to-person payments, insurance and loan applications handled via an app or bringing small businesses online, the field of financial tech is venture capital's favorite thing this year. That's particularly palpable in my region of the world, where South Asian and Southeast Asian fintech startups are getting funded every day at mushrooming valuations.

Bangladesh's ShopUp raised $75 million this week in a round led by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, making it the country's best-funded startup, according to Prosus, one of the company's investors. ShopUp helps small neighborhood stores with procurement, logistics and financing and is growing at a prodigious rate. Pakistan also had its biggest funding round this summer, and the nation in between those two, India, is churning out unicorns seemingly every day.

We have passed a tipping point where smartphones have finally proliferated sufficiently in the markets everyone has been declaring the next to go online. Now, app-based services like ShopUp or India's Paytm are flourishing.

Technology dominates venture capital and private equity funding for the region, commanding 88% of deals by value in the first quarter of this year, up from 75% a year earlier, according to a study by Facebook Inc. and Bain & Co. Fintech took home more than half of funding within the tech sphere, spanning such services as buy-now-pay-later, peer-to-peer lending, digital wallets and, yes, some cryptocurrency, too.

The potential investment opportunity is obvious: The market for digital services in each region is still developing while the number of potential users is rocketing up. Southeast Asia will have 350 million digital consumers by year's end. India has half a billion online and is working on the next half billion.

Striking to me is the exclusion of other forms of tech innovation. Very few of the richest startups are working on new kinds of consumer hardware. And as much as the chip supply crunch is a big story right now, funding isn't exactly rushing into semiconductor firms, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. Only medical tech and the odd agriculture-improving drone startup with artificial intelligence credentials seem to be making the grade.

Still, one encouraging trend is that private money is helping local businesses cultivate digital ecosystems in countries that haven't previously enjoyed much VC interest. The developing world could use more options besides Google Pay or WeChat Pay. —Vlad Savov

Anker built a $1.5 billion-a-year business selling well-reviewed smartphone accessories largely through Amazon. The startup now has ambitions to become what Sony was in its heyday.

The guy who runs Apple Watch software is now in charge of building a self-driving car. Kevin Lynch was given the keys after Ford hired away Doug Field, the former Apple car chief.

Amazon is building TV sets, and Facebook is making sunglasses. Amazon is sticking Alexa in a TV, and Facebook is putting cameras in a pair of Ray-Bans.

U.S. regulators put cryptocurrency companies on notice. The SEC threatened to sue Coinbase, a clear sign of regulatory aggression.

The company Jeff Bezos built took a swipe at Elon Musk. "The conduct of SpaceX and other Musk-led companies makes their view plain: rules are for other people," Amazon wrote in a letter to the U.S. communications regulator.

Houseparty, an app that went viral early in the pandemic, is shutting down. The owner, Epic Games, will reassign employees to other projects.