Grab, which started as a taxi-booking app, has been transforming itself into a consumer technology group. (Reuters) Updated 02 August 2018 Reuters August 02, 2018 02:58 136 SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab on Thursday said it has secured new investment of $1 billion from a clutch of financial firms, including global asset manager OppenheimerFunds and China’s Ping An Capital. The funding comes after Toyota Motor Corp. in June bought a $1 billion stake in Grab as the lead investor in a financing round launched following Grab’s acquisition of Uber Technologies Inc’s operations in Southeast Asia. Grab said other investors in the new funding include Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Macquarie Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Six-year-old Grab, which counts Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. among its backers, was valued at just more than $10 billion after Toyota’s investment, a source familiar with the matter said at the time. Grab, which started as a taxi-booking app, has been transforming itself into a consumer technology group, offering services such as digital payments and food delivery. Earlier this year, Uber sold its Southeast Asian business to Grab in exchange for a stake in the Singapore-based firm, in a deal that has prompted regulatory scrutiny. Grab said it would use the new funds to expand its online-to-offline services in Southeast Asia. It plans to use a significant portion of the proceeds to invest in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest market where Go-Jek is the dominant player in ride-hailing. Go-Jek counts Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., private equity firms KKR & Co., Warburg Pincus and venture capital player Sequoia Capital among its investors.
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