Grab closes US$2B round from DiDi and SoftBank; aims to raise US$500M more
Rumours of this new financing have been swirling since March
After months of rumours swirling in the media, Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab has officially announced the close of a US$2 billion round led by Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing (DiDi) and Japanese telecom conglomerate SoftBank Group.
The newly-raised financing will allow Grab to increase its market share and strengthen its mobile payments platform GrabPay.
Grab said that it plans to raise an additional US$500 million, but did not say when.
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“By deepening our strategic partnership, DiDi and Grab reaffirm our shared commitment to innovating localised solutions to global urban development challenges from the world’s fastest growing marketplaces,” said Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of DiDi, in a press statement.
“Grab is using technology to address transportation and payments, some of the biggest challenges present in Southeast Asia, and we believe Grab is a tremendously exciting company in a dynamic and promising region,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp.
Launched in 2012, Grab started off as just a taxi-hailing platform. Today, it offers a wide range of transportation services, including motorbikes, coaches, private cars and shuttle buses.
Grab claimed that, regionally, it has a market share of 95 per cent in third-party taxi-hailing and 71 per cent in private vehicle hailing.
It added that it has a fleet of over 1.1 million drivers, who collectively conduct three million rides daily. Grab also claimed that the GrabPay platform has grown 80 per cent month-on-month since its launch in December 2016.
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Image Credit: Grab
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