Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab is seeking to raise over $1.5 billion in a new funding round. Bloomberg, quoting sources familiar with the matter, added, SoftBank Corporation is planning to invest about $1 billion into the company.
This, however, is not known whether the Japenese giant will infuse the capital itself or via the SoftBank Vision Fund. With this round Grab could take the funding scenario of Southeast Asia to another level, with an expected valuation of over $3 billion. Prior to this, the Singapore-headquartered firm had grabbed investment from financial services firm Tokyo Century, just months after it touched the $3 billion valuation mark after raising $750 million from SoftBank.
Grab is making uninterrupted and very quick developments in its business. It is exploring all kinds of possibilities to pronounce its dominance in the ride-hailing industry of Southeast Asia. It recently added Myanmar to its radar, making it the seventh country in the region, where it operates. This, however, didn’t seem to go well with Uber, that announced (that too, within an hour of Grab’s revelation) its plans to enter Myanmar “soon”.
The company is also looking to hire 800 more developers for its research and development team across six centers. It had opened two new research facilities in Bangalore (India) and Ho Chin Minh City (Vietnam). Grab maintains a very strong foothold in Indonesia, where it entered in 2014. It has committed $700 million for ‘Grab 4 Indonesia’ 2020 master plan under which it will invest the capital in a period of over four years.
Grab has its presence in 39 cities across 6 countries, with more than 710,000 drivers in its network and over 36 million mobile app downloads. It claims to have 95% market share of third-party taxi-hailing apps and more than 50% market share in private cars in the markets in which it offers its services.
