INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Grab, the ride-hailing firm that acquired Uber Southeast Asia business earlier this year, is raising a new round of funding and it just
announced that it will be led by Toyota, which is committing $1 billion in capital
The deal values Grab at over $10 billion, a source close to the company told TechCrunch.
In return for its capital, Toyota will also get a
board seat and the opportunity to place an executive within Grab team
Grab said it plans to work with its new investor ''to create a more efficient transport network that will ease traffic congestion in
Southeast Asia megacities& and help its drivers increase their income
In particular, that will involve close collaboration with the Toyota Mobility Service Platform (MSPF), which is working on areas such as
user-based insurance, new types of financial packages and predictive car maintenance.
Going forward, together with Grab, we will develop
services that are more attractive, safe and secure for our customers in Southeast Asia,& said Toyota executive vice president Shigeki
Tomoyama in a statement.
Toyota put money into Grab via its Next Technology Fund last year, but this time around the capital comes directly
Hyundai is another automotive firm that has backed Grab.
The new round follows a $2.5 billion investment that was jointly led by SoftBank
and China Didi, two long-time investors put an initial $2 billion up for the roundlast year
That round quietly closed at the start of 2018, Grab has confirmed but so far it hasn''t said who put up the additional money.
The company
valuation had been $6 billion but, unsurprisingly since the Uber deal, it has jumped by a further $4 billion based on Toyota
investment.
Grab now claims over 100 million downloads of its app across eight countries in Asia, including Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam,
The firm said its annual revenue run rate has now surpassed $1 billion, although it declined to provide profit or loss numbers.
While it did
remove Uber from the region by acquiring its business — although the deal didn''t go as smoothly as had planned — that exit prompted new
entrants to jump into the region with Indonesia Go-Jek, in particular, looking like the key foe
Go-Jek, which is valued at some $4.5 billion, recently announced plans to expand to four new markets having itself raised a significant $1.5
billion round.
Aside from competition, Singapore-based Grabhas kept its busy in recent years expanding its services from point-to-point
taxis and private car hailing to include mobile payments, food delivery and dock-less bicycles
Earlier this month it officially unveiled Grab Ventures, a unit focused on helping building out an ecosystem through investment and
mentoring.
Grab Ventures is not a VC arm, but it does plan to make 8-10 investments over the next two years while it will also open an
accelerator program for &growth-stage& startups — although that doesn''t include equity investments for cash
The division will also focus on incubating new business ideas, which include its recently launched Grab Cycles product which aggregates
on-demand bikes from a range of companies.
