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Report: Southeast Asian Uber rival Grab raising new $1.5B round
Southeast Asian Uber Technologies Inc. rival GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd. is raising a new round of $1.5 billion, according to a report published late Friday.
Bloomberg, quoting people familiar with the matter, claims that the round will be led by Japanese giant SoftBank Group Corp. to the tune of $1 billion but notes that it isn’t clear if the money was coming from the Japanese company itself or its yet-to-close SoftBank Vision Fund.
Grab’s last round was in September, when it raised a $750 million Series F round also led by Softbank that gave Grab a $3 billion valuation. It’s not clear what the valuation on the new round would be, but it’s likely to be at least somewhat higher.
Founded in 2011, Grab, which has dropped the taxi part from its trading name, operates in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, offering a variety of services including taxi, motorcycle and vehicle trips. According to reports, Grab is currently looking at expanding in Myanmar, which would give it coverage across all of the Association of Southeast Asian countries except the tiny sultanate of Brunei.
Grab competes with Uber in many of its territories, along with Go-Jek in its largest market of Indonesia. That’s said to be Grab’s largest market, with more than 600 percent growth last year.
Its expansion has not been without problems, however. Its Grab Taxi service is regarded as legal where it operates as it involved the use of legally registered taxis. But its Grab Car service, a direct clone of Uber X in that it utilizes private vehicles to collect passengers, recently ran into trouble in Thailand.
The Thai government has primarily targeted Uber in its crackdown, but Grab Car has also been targeted by the local Department of Land Transport “pursuing tougher measures to crack down on illegal ride-hailing taxi services,” according to The Bangkok Post. One report had the local franchise holder for Grab Taxi targeting drivers working for Grab Car.
Should the new round go ahead, Grab will have raised $2.93 billion. Previous investors include 500 Startups, China Investment Corporation, Coatue Management, GGV Capital, Jixun Foo, Hillhouse Capital Group, Qunar.com, Tiger Global Management and Vertex Ventures.
Picture: Duncan Riley
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