Daily News

View All News

Uber partner Grab gets $1.46 billion investment

March 07, 2019

Uber Technologies Inc.’s partner in Southeast Asia — human cloud and ride-sharing firm Grab — secured $1.46 billion in new funding from the Softbank Vision Fund.

Uber last year sold its Southeast Asia business to Singapore-based Grab in a deal that gave Uber a 27.5% stake in the combined company. Grab stated that, on a group level, its transport business has grown robustly since the merger, almost doubling its revenue from March 2018 to December 2018.

CNN reported the latest funding values Grab at about $14 billion, according to a person familiar with the company. That's up from a valuation of $11 billion last year.

This capital injection brings the total financing secured in Grab’s current Series H round to more than $4.5 billion. Other investors in the round include Toyota Motor Corp., Oppenheimer Funds, Hyundai Motor Group, Booking Holdings, Microsoft Corp., Ping An Capital and Yamaha Motor.

Grab intends to use the funds to expand its verticals such as financial services, food delivery, parcel delivery, content and digital payments, and roll out new services built on Grab’s open platform, GrabPlatform. These services include on-demand video, in partnership with HOOQ; digital healthcare, in partnership with Ping An Good Doctor; insurance, in partnership with ZhongAn International; and hotel bookings, in partnership with Booking Holdings.

In particular, Grab plans to invest a significant portion of the proceeds in Indonesia.