Grab Raises Another $300M To Accelerate SE Asia Expansion

Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing company, Grab, has raised $300 million from Invesco, an asset manager, according to a report by Reuters. 

“The additional investment in Grab takes Invesco’s overall total to $703 million and re-affirms its belief in Grab’s vision and plan for the region,” Grab said on Thursday (June 27).

Grab said it wanted to raise a total of $6.5 billion in capital this year. In April, the company said it wanted to raise an additional $2 billion a few weeks after the announcement that it raised $4.5 billion.

“We have been closely watching Southeast Asia and have every confidence in Grab’s ability to unlock new opportunities across on-demand mobility, delivery and financial services in the region,” said Justin Leverenz, senior portfolio manager at Invesco Emerging Markets.

Grab isn’t just a ride-hailing company; it also handles food delivery, eCommerce and banking to a growing populace. 

In other Grab news, the company recently made a move to expand its reach outside of Southeast Asia. Grab extended a partnership with Splyt Technologies and invested in the United Kingdom-based startup. Through the technology, Grab users venturing beyond that region can make ride reservations and have those fulfilled by Splyt’s partners without the need for an additional app, Reuters reported.

Through the partnership between Splyt and Grab, Alipay and Ctrip clients visiting Southeast Asia can hail Grab rides via their own apps. Although Splyt doesn’t operate its own ride-hailing service, it does provide partners with that option in more than 1,000 cities. At the same time, it was noted that the investment by Grab is part of an $8 million fundraising round.

The partnership falls into Grab’s strategy of becoming a so-called “super-app” through expanding its service from food delivery and payments to transport, according to the report. Separately, last year, Grab rolled out a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers dubbed GrabPlatform, with the mission to create the first everyday super-app in Southeast Asia.