Singapore-based ride hailing platform Grab doubled a funding round featuring automotive manufacturer Toyota, insurance group Ping An and internet company Naver to $2bn yesterday.
Toyota had already provided the first $1bn of funding in June this year, and the second tranche featured Ping An unit Ping An Capital and Mirae Asset – Naver Asia Growth Fund, the joint venture set up by Naver and investment bank Mirae Asset Daewoo in March 2018.
The round, which reportedly valued Grab at $11bn post-money, included OppenheimerFunds, Cinda Sino-Rock Investment Management, All-Stars Investment, Vulcan Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Macquarie Capital and unnamed additional investors in the second close.
Grab’s core offering is an on-demand ride platform that spans eight Southeast Asian countries, and the capital will support its expansion into a more diversified online-to-offline (O2O) service provider, adding to services such as mobile payment and food and parcel delivery.
The company formed a grocery delivery service with e-commerce platform HappyFresh last month and intends to expand it from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to more cities as part of a wider growth drive in the country.
Grab president Ming Maa said: “Grab is today the industry-changing O2O platform that enables millions of consumers and entrepreneurs to come online and drive the digital economy in Southeast Asia.
“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.”
The round increased Grab’s overall funding to more than $5.9bn and follows a $2.5bn round in August 2017 that included Toyota, fellow carmaker Hyundai, telecommunications group SoftBank and on-demand ride provider Didi Chuxing.
The company’s first corporate backing came in a $15m series B round backed by travel agency Qunar, Vertex Venture Holdings and GGV Capital in June 2014, back when it was still known as GrabTaxi.
Grab’s existing backers joined Tiger Global Management and Hillhouse Capital for a $65m series C round in October the same year, before SoftBank invested $250m in the company two months later.
Didi Chuxing, then known as Didi Kuaidi, joined SoftBank, China Investment Corporation, Tiger Global and Coatue Management to supply $350m in series E funding for Grab in 2015. SoftBank subsequently led the company’s $750m series F round the following year.
Other Grab shareholders include media company Emtek, financial services firm Tokyo Century, carmaker Honda and US-based counterpart Uber, which acquired an equity stake in return for the divestment of its local operations to Grab in March 2018.