Toyota has pumped $1bn in South East Asia’s ridesharing firm Grab that values the ride-hailing company at $10bn following its recent acquisition of Uber’s south-east Asian business. The latest deal is the biggest investment by Toyota in the ride-sharing sector, as traditional carmakers partner with technology companies to explore new ways of making money in the self-driving era.
Grab raised $2bn last year from Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing and SoftBank. It has raised $5bn to date with the latest investment from Toyota, which is already an investor in the south-east Asian start-up. Grab has been working with Japan’s largest carmaker on connected car services since August 2017, providing, for example, car insurance for Grab’s rental fleet based on driving data collected by a Toyota device.
Under the latest investment deal, Toyota said it would appoint one executive to Grab’s board and that a dedicated Toyota team member would be seconded to the car-hailing company as an executive officer.
“As a global leader in the automotive industry, Toyota’s investment in Grab is based on their conviction in our leadership in driving the adoption of new mobility solutions and expanding [online-to-offline] mobile services, such as GrabFood and GrabPay, in the region,” Ming Maa, president of Grab, said in a statement.
“Going forward, together with Grab, we will develop services that are more attractive, safe and secure for our customers in Southeast Asia,” Shigeki Tomoyama, Toyota executive vice president, said in a statement included in the announcement.
A number of car companies have taken stakes in ride-hailing groups in recent years as they attempt to offer transportation services in addition to manufacturing and delivering vehicles to address declining car ownership. South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and Japan’s Honda Motor have also invested in Grab. General Motors has invested in Lyft while Toyota also has a stake in Uber through an investment fund backed by the Japanese carmaker.
In March, Uber agreed to fold its business in south-east Asia into Grab in exchange for a 27.5 per cent in the enlarged business — roughly matching its estimated market share in the region.
Singapore-based Grab was founded in 2012 and has expanded aggressively across the region, operating in eight countries.
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