Grab raises US$2b in recent funding round

Toyota was joined by investors like OppenheimerFunds and Ping An Capital for the round.

Grab Holdings (Grab) has raised a whopping US$2b for its current round of financing. Investors included Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) as well as OppenheimerFunds, Ping An Capital, Mirae Asset - Naver Asia Growth Fund, Cinda Sino-Rock Investment Management Company, All-Stars Investment, Vulcan Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Macquarie Capital.

According to an announcement, Grab will finance its expansion of its online-to-offline (O2O) services as well as its superapp initiative in Southeast Asia. It will also continue its investment in Indonesia.

Grab launched GrabFresh, an on-demand grocery delivery service in Jakarta, with other cities to follow later in 2018. Meanwhile, GrabFood has expanded from Jakarta to serve 28 cities and towns across Indonesia, winning significant market share with Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in Indonesia almost quadrupling in the first half of 2018, it said.

The company added that GrabExpress GMV in Indonesia has more than doubled in the first half of 2018.

Grab has over 7.1 million micro-entrepreneurs on its platform, more than half of whom reside in Indonesia. “Through Grab’s partnership with local wallet and rewards programme, OVO, Grab has formed the country's most widely accepted mobile payments ecosystem, with more than 60 million downloads,” it added.

Grab president Ming Maa commented, “We have seen overwhelming interest from global strategic investors and partners who are keen to partner with us to capture the region’s booming growth.”