<article>Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing pioneer <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=grab">Grab</a> has raised a record high funding of $750 million led by Japanese tech group <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=softbank">Softbank</a> with participation from both new and existing investors.</article>

Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing pioneer <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=grab">Grab</a> has raised a record high funding of $750 million led by Japanese tech group <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=softbank">Softbank</a> with participation from both new and existing investors.
Grab said the funding, which was oversubscribed, increased its total capital position to over $1 billion, making the ride sharing company the best capitalized technology startup and mobile internet company in Southeast Asia.
Sources said the new financing valued Grab at around $3 billion, turning the startup into the second largest tech firm in the region, after Singapore’s internet company <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=garena">Garena</a>.
Bloomberg also cited its intelligence that Chinese rival <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=Didi+Chuxing">Didi Chuxing</a> joined the record financing. However, Grab revealed no other investors apart from Softbank in its Tuesday statement.
Offering services of private car, motorbike, taxi, and carpooling, Grab currently attracts up to 1.5 million daily bookings from six countries that it operates in, becoming one of the most frequently used mobile platforms in the region.
In order to leverage its $1 billion cash position, the company will continue to tap into the Southeast Asian market of 620 million people, with a rising middle class and more mobile users, especially in Indonesia.
Grab will further develop its services in Jakarta, the 30 million people city where such utilities as GrabCar, GrabBike, GrabTaxi and GrabFood are relevant and transformative. GrabCar and GrabBike grew 250 times in one year as of the end of June 2016, the company revealed. Grab will also bring localized services to more major cities across this country, amid a rising role of local rival <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=go-jek">Go-Jek</a>.
At the same time, Grab said to significantly invest in mobile payments capabilities, an endeavour to address low banking and credit card penetration and limited cashless payment options in this region.
“With GrabPay, we aim to provide a seamless mobile payment solution for our users. As a start, Grab has partnered with Mandiri, Indonesia’s second largest local bank, to offer a mobile wallet service. In Indonesia, we are also long-term partners with Lippo Group, with whom we are implementing an <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/indonesia-grab-partners-lippo-group-for-e-payment-platform-48267/">e-money payments platform</a> that will enable users to use GrabPay at Lippo’s department stores, hypermarts, cinemas, coffee shops and e-commerce platform,” the company said.
It is also the first ridesharing operator to partner with global banker <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=citi">Citi</a> to enable cardholders to use Citibank points to pay for rides.
Investing in data science and machine learning capabilities is another area of focus to facilitate the company’s growth, and enable services like predictive demand and driver and user targeting.
“This latest funding, the largest in the history of Southeast Asia consumer technology, strengthens our ability to pursue those long-term goals as we continue to build on our market leadership. We are particularly excited about the growth opportunity in Indonesia, where we see an almost $15 billion market for ride-hailing services alone, as well as the potential to extend GrabPay’s platform regionally,” said Anthony Tan, Grab co-founder cum CEO.
With business operation in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, Grab has nearly quadrupled its total number of drivers and active users, as well as rides volume since its <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/grabtaxi-raises-largest-round-yet-350m-from-coatue-cic-didi-kuaidi-10643/">$350 million series E funding</a> in August 2015.
“Grab is the clear winner in the Southeast Asia mobile space. […] We are committed to supporting local champions like Grab that have a vision for a next-generation internet ecosystem, and look forward to participating in their long-term success,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of Softbank.
The ridehailing platform is testing new services, including social carpooling, last mile and food deliveries.
Grab, along with its Chinese backer Didi Kuaidi, Indian peer <a href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=ola">Ola</a> and US player <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/?s=lyft">Lyft</a> have forged an <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/ola-didi-kuaidi-lyft-grabtaxi-in-global-alliance-to-take-on-uber-22152/">anti-Uber alliance</a> which is helping them increase the presence of the apps internationally.
Also read:
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/go-jek-closes-550-million-funding-49688/">Indonesia’s Go-Jek raises over $550m from KKR, Warburg to battle Uber and Grab</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/didi-softbank-said-to-lead-600-million-plus-round-for-grab-49442/">Didi, SoftBank said to lead $600m-plus round for Grab</a>
<a style="color: #ff0000;" href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/49252-49252/">Grab CEO: Didi’s victory in China shows local champions can prevail</a>

Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing pioneer Grab has raised a record high funding of $750 million led by Japanese tech group Softbank.

Southeast Asian ride-hailing app Grab raises $750m in funding led by SoftBank

Bring stories like this into your inbox every day.

Sign up for our newsletter - The Daily Brief

Southeast Asian ride-hailing app Grab raises $750m in funding led by SoftBank

Start your deal-making journey now!

Bring stories like this into your inbox every day.

Sign up for our newsletter - The Daily Brief