The company has its sights set on ‘grabbing’ Indonesia’s market

Today, Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant Grab, announced plans to raise up to US$6.5 billion by the end of this year.

Explaining the move forward, Grab’s president Ming Maa shared that “In line with the tremendous transformation that South East Asia is currently undergoing, the opportunity is ripe for (Grab) to further grow in domains like healthcare, financial services amongst others”.

With six trans-regional investments already in the making, Grab is set to invest more aggressively this year. Its ambition is partially supported by its five-year partnership with SoftBank, which signed a US$1.46 billion investment deal with Grab last month.

In its current Series H fundraising, Grab has also managed to raise US$4.5 billion from its other key strategic investors and plans to close this round with additional funds from current and new investors.

This year, the company has decided to focus the majority of its proceeds on Indonesia — the home market of key rival Go-Jek.

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The company claims that GrabFood has been showing rapid growth in Indonesia, operating in an additional 165 cities. Grab says delivery volume has grown almost 10X in 2018.

In a jab at rival GOJEK, which has set out to raise a $2 billion in its Series G round, Grab’s CEO Anthony Tan, said they “expect to be four times bigger than our closest competitor in Indonesia and across the region by the end of the year”.

Grab is working with global leaders like Toyota, Hyundai and Microsoft. It also boasts a slew of formidable regional partners like Singapore’s United Overseas Bank, Indonesia’s OVO and Thailand’s Central Group.

“As (Grab) grows to become the leading super app in Southeast Asia, we see massive opportunities to expand our business and continue to serve our customers, driver-partners and merchants across Southeast Asia,” says Anthony Tan.

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Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash

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