Southeast Asia's Grab launches venture arm

The unit, known as Grab Ventures, will partner with private investment firms and government agencies to identify growth-stage companies with technology solutions in the transportation, logistics, food, and financial services spaces.

The company aims to partner with up to 10 start-ups over the next two years to help develop and scale their technologies, and will invest in companies that show strong synergies with Grab. The fund size has not been disclosed.

In addition, Grab has also launched Velocity, an accelerator designed to help Southeast Asian start-ups with regional expansion. Participants in the program will have access to Grab’s technology expertise, its ecosystem of products including GrabPay and GrabRewards, and its network of drivers, delivery partners, and merchants.

Grab has already made several investments, some of which have now been added to the Grab Ventures portfolio. These include Drive.ai, a US-founded autonomous vehicle start-up that entered Singapore last year after a $15 million investment, and Indonesian e-commerce player Kudo, which Grab acquired last year.

The launch of Grab Ventures follows the creation last year of a $100 million fund aimed at Indonesian start-ups in the mobile and financial services industries.

“Grab is ramping up innovation in-house to scale faster as the leading O2O mobile platform in Southeast Asia. We’re always open to partnerships where it makes sense for our business, and will look to partner or invest in the right company that enables Grab to expand our business quickly, explore new technologies and build new capabilities,” said Grab co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan (pictured) in a statement.

Grab launched in 2012 with taxi-hailing app GrabTaxi, and later expanded its business to include private car, motorbike, and carpooling services.

As of January, the company was in the process of raising what is expected to be a $2.5 billion Series G round, which would take its total disclosed funding above $3.9 billion and bring its valuation to a reported $6 billion. SoftBank and Didi Chuxing committed $2 billion last year. Other backers include Tiger Global Management, GGV Capital, Vertex Ventures, Toyota, and Hyundai.

Earlier this year, Grab agreed to acquire the Southeast Asia operations of its global rival Uber, integrating its ridesharing and food delivery businesses into the Grab platform.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Venture
• Singapore
• TMT
• Grab
• Growth capital