Skip to main content

Grab promises to invest $500 million into Vietnam

Ride-hailing company Grab is going to focus some of its efforts on Vietnam with a $500 million investment over the next five years to grow its activities in the country.

While Grab started as a ride-hailing company, it is now much more than that. The company has become a “super app” that you can open to order a ride, order food from restaurants, make payments, get insurance products, loans and much more. It is mostly active in Southeast Asia.

The company recently announced that it would use some of the $7 billion that it has raised to date to bet on Indonesia. Grab plans to invest $2 billion in Indonesia to modernize the country’s transportation infrastructure. The Indonesian government is supporting the move, and Grab is using this opportunity to capture market share.

With today’s move, Grab is essentially doing the same thing at a smaller scale in Vietnam. In particular, Grab is once again partnering with government officials. It has announced a “Tech for Good” roadmap in the country that should foster Vietnam’s economic development at large.

Grab plans to provide work opportunities in 63 cities in order to fight unemployment rate. The company is looking for drivers, delivery persons and merchants. They will be able to access credit and insurance products. Of course, this plan will only work if there are enough Grab customers in those cities over the long term.

The company plans to invest in local startups through GrabVentures. Grab will also launch programs to improves digital and financial literacy. Finally, Grab plans to share data with local governments in order to tackle traffic congestion and pollution.

When it comes to metrics, Grab is already quite big in Vietnam. For instance, the company is currently handling 300,000 food deliveries per day through GrabFood. It represents a 400 percent increase in gross merchandise volume during the first half of 2019. Grab drivers have generated close to $1 billion in revenue over the years.



from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2LgDMHw
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Axeleo Capital raises $51 million fund

Axeleo Capital has raised a $51 million fund (€45 million). Axeleo first started with an accelerator focused on enterprise startups. The firm is now all grown up with an acceleration program and a full-fledged VC fund. The accelerator is now called Axeleo Scale , while the fund is called Axeleo Capital . And it’s important to mention both parts of the business as they work hand in hand. Axeleo picks up around 10 startups per year and help them reach the Series A stage. If they’re doing well over the 12 to 18 months of the program, Axeleo funds those startups using its VC fund. Limited partners behind the company’s first fund include Bpifrance through the French Tech Accélération program, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Vinci Energies, Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Caisse d’Épargne Rhône-Alpes as well as various business angels and family offices. The firm is also partnering with Hi Inov, the holding company of the Dentressangle family. Axeleo will take care of the early stage in...
Post a Comment
Read more

Puls raises $50 million for in-home technical support

A fund affiliated with the Singaporean government has a great interest in making sure that American consumers are getting the tech support they need. Temasek, the multi-billion-dollar investment fund associated with the government in Singapore, has led a $50 million round for  Puls Technologies, Inc. , a San Francisco-based company aiming to be the tech support for American homes and offices. Current investors Sequoia Capital, Red Dot Capital Partners, Samsung NEXT and Viola Ventures all participated in the new financing, alongside additional new investors Hanaco Ventures and Hamilton Lane. Founded only three years ago, Puls pitches a service that can match consumers with the appropriate technician in a little over an hour, any day of the week. The company has built a network of 2,500 technicians in the top 50 cities in the United States, and will provide same-day installation and repair of over 200 products. Some things the company’s technicians can service include smartphon...
Post a Comment
Read more