Grab, the Southeastern Asian giant for cab hailing has confirmed to raise $750 million in fresh capital.

The company raised series F round, and it was led by existing investor SoftBank from new and undisclosed existing backers. One such investment is said to be directed from China’s Didi Kuaidi, which reportedly made a commitment to this round but neither side is confirming now.

Image by Jon Russell / CC BY 2.0

This round confirmed post-valuation of $3 billion to the company which was previously valued at $2.3 billion. It raised around $350 million last August and this funding round was comprehended to raise $600 million in August. However, the company’s headquarter in Singapore claims to possess $1 billion on sheet courtesy of this fresh capital.

Grab said it has 400,000 drivers on its platforms and it has seen over 21 million app downloads to date. In an announcement, the company added that it sees “up to 1.5 million daily bookings,” which a Grab spokesperson confirmed means ride requests not completed rides. Taking on Uber does definitely require loads of capital, Grab, however, has sketched major areas where it would like to focus.

Indonesia is the fifth largest economy in Southeast Asia that falls on the top of the list with the CEO Anthony Tan claiming that Indonesia’s ride-hailing industry is worth $15 billion annually- that includes multi-mode means of transportation which Grab offers there and services such as food delivery, logistics and more. Though, GoJek is a tough competitor in Indonesian market that provides on-demand motorbike taxi service.

Grab has R&D centres in Singapore, Beijing and Seattle that has set priorities on refining algorithms to help drivers become more efficient using mapping technology, working on-demand prediction and user targeting.

“Grab has grown tremendously over the past year. This round of funding shows the confidence and optimism investors have in Grab’s market leadership and long-term potential in Southeast Asia,” Tan, Grab’s CEO, said in a statement.

This new funding round is a major round for Grab and the largest for a tech startup in Southeast Asia to date.

Source: TechCrunch

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Everyone was wondering how the market outside of China will play out after the recent association between Uber China and Didi Chuxing. Well, we have the answer now. According to a recent news report by Bloomberg, Didi Chuxing and SoftBank Group are leading a new round of funding in ride-sharing service Grab. It also reveals that the deal could exceed  USD 600 million and the round may close this week.

The deal would push up the total investment in Grab past a billion USD. Grab CEO Anthony Tan was quick to comment on the merger of Uber China with Didi Chuxing and told his staff that this deal is a proof that local competition can beat the global ride sharing giant. He said, “With the deal in China, we expect Uber to turn more attention and divert resources to our region, but we have seen that when the local champion stays true to their beliefs and strengths, they can prevail. We see this happening in China, and it will be the same here. They’ve lost once, and we will make them lose again.”

The investment will fuel Grab to deal with the potential attack that is coming from Uber with Chinese market going out of the equation. It also clarifies that the association between Uber China and Didi Chuxing doesn’t cross the borders and the fight is far from over in other parts of the world. Some sources have also indicated that Uber plans to move their experts from China to other key markets. While the dust seems to have settled in China, it might just get fierce in other parts as Didi fuels the Uber rivals. Your move Uber.

Source: Bloomberg

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One of the leading ride-hailing brands, Uber is looking to raise $2.1 billion. It is the most valuable private technology company on paper, at a current $50 billion valuation. Once completed, the investment will value the company at $62.5 billion.

Currently, Uber is informing its potential investors that it has a gross revenue rate of over $10 billion globally. The major portion of this money is given to its drivers. Tiger Global Management, led by its business partner Lee Fixel, participated in Uber’s latest investment round. The participation of Tiger Global Management is interesting as it has previously invested in two of the Uber’s biggest competitors i.e. Ola and GrabTaxi. This might be the first time a major institutional investor has participated in the rounds of both Uber and its competitors.

This news indicates that Uber is accelerating its race to expand globally and branch into services beyond picking up and dropping off riders. The company has tested food and package delivery in some cities, and is working on new technology, such as self-driving cars. Uber has already earmarked at least $1 billion towards its growth efforts in the Chinese market. Recently, it has made Ride Request Button available in 3^rdparty mobile travel apps to bring new customers onboard.

Observing the rapid expansion of Uber in different markets, its cab-rental rivals – Ola in India, Didi Kuaidi in China, GrabTaxi in Southeast Asia and Lyft in the USA had announced a strategic global rideshare partnership. Ola operates in 102 Indian cities. Didi takes seven million rides per day across 360 Chinese cities. Lyft in the US runs in over 190 cities and claims to have 7 million rides per month and GrabTaxi leads Southeast Asia with up to 1.5 million daily bookings across six countries. The four companies together can turn into a major challenger for Uber.

For international travellers, this association means seamless ridesharing across multiple countries. For example, an Indian Ola user can use the same app in Singapore to hail a GrabTaxi and vice versa. The companies will connect and use each other’s technology, local market knowledge, and business resources for enhancing growth.

How will Uber expand further in different markets and confront the four leading ride-hailing brands is yet to be seen.

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Announcing a new carpooling service in Singapore, GrabTaxi – an automated smartphone booking and dispatch platform for the taxi industry – has launched a new feature called GrabHitch in its app. With the help of GrabHitch drivers with extra space in their vehicles will be permitted to pick up passengers going on the same direction.

Interested travellers can pre-book a ride seven days in advance and up to 15 minutes before the pickup by simply entering their pickup location and destination. Drivers travelling in the same direction or destination will be notified instantaneously. As per the strict rules and regulations of Singapore, GrabHitch drivers will be permitted only two rides every day and the fares should cover only the variable expenses such as petrol and car depreciation. All fares will be payable by a cashless credit card option called GrabPay available in the app. The fares will be calculated taking into account the distance of the ride. For the convenience of the travellers, the prices charged will be displayed to them even before booking the cabs enabling them to be comfortable with the prices they might end up paying for the rides.

GrabHitch is already available for the beta driver signup phase in Singapore. It started few days back and is supposed to run till 30^th November, 2015. The travellers who sign up early will receive exclusive GrabHitch gifts and will be eligible for the lucky draw. GrabHitch will be made launched and made available to all travellers in Singapore by the end of this year.

Tan Hooi Ling, the co-founder of GrabTaxi, quoted:

“GrabHitch hits the sweet spot for people who want a door-to-door transport service, but prefer not to pay a premium above public train or bus fares. We think GrabHitch will attract users of public transit options, which will alleviate the crowds on trains and buses. It is a win-win for both drivers and passengers in terms of costs, and there’s an added benefit of meeting new people with similar interests. GrabHitch makes transport more than a transaction – it’s now also an enabler to build new relationships.”

Elaborating on this development, Anthony Tan, the other co-founder and CEO of GrabTaxi stated:

“With over half a million private cars in Singapore, there is a significant pool of vehicles with extra seats for more passengers. Every car has the potential to play a part in improving Singapore’s public transport network and meet the growing demand of rides each day. With GrabHitch, we now offer the most number of complementary transport choices for people using the GrabTaxi app – to give people options at all price points, at all times and for all needs.”

They try to match people with common interests to motivate them to use the service. To network with car-sharing community GrabTaxi drivers and passengers will be linked with each other through Facebook. The travellers can go through each others profiles and get to know whether they have mutual friends. The registered drivers are verified at several levels with documents such as driving license, motor vehicle registration and insurance. ‘ShareMyRide’ feature will allow live-tracking of the ride and the 24-hour customer service hotline will be available for all travellers.

This car-pooling service will be economic for both the drivers and travellers. The company believes that GrabHitch will reduce the travelling expenses of the travellers to almost half the rate when compared with the local taxi fares. Headquartered in Singapore, GrabTaxi operates in 28 cities in six different Southeast Asian countries with 160,000 drivers on its platform. It is available in 6 different languages: English, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia.

GrabTaxi app is available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

How much do you think GrabTaxi will be able to boost the car-pooling trend in Singapore with GrabHitch?

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GrabTaxi has grown into a big name in the industry from a small Malaysian startup in a short period of time. In Southeast Asia, it is considered to be a strong rival for Uber. Cheryl Goh is the Group Vice President of Marketing at GrabTaxi and has been associated with it for 2.5 years. She shared the story of GrabTaxi’s growth during her session at WIT Bootcamp. Here are some takeaways that will help future entrepreneurs in their journey:

Cheryl Goh shared what she learned building the GrabTaxi brand

#1- Tailor around the customer

To grow business successfully, it is very important to tailor the product around the needs of customers. GrabTaxi changed the picture of taxi business in Malaysia because it was necessary. The cab drivers there didn’t follow the standard practices and would often haggle on prices. GrabTaxi worked hard to change the way they work which eventually resulted in their success in the region.

Startups today don’t just need a good product. They need a good product that has been built around the needs of the customer.

#2- To build global, go hyperlocal

In Malaysia, the major issue with cabs was unreliability while in Singapore, efficiency was an issue. GrabTaxi had to take different approaches for the two markets to achieve the same result, fast and reliable cab service.

As travel brands cover wide geography, it is very important for them to study the new markets thoroughly and strategize accordingly. This is important not only while building the product but also while marketing it.

#3- Try to exceed expectations

Cheryl shared how in Malaysia they call drivers who have got advanced bookings for mornings to make sure the customers get their cab on time as a large number of people use GrabTaxi to book cabs to airport. They keep putting in similar efforts to ensure that they can deliver the best to their customers.

It is very important to have a team that believes strongly in the product and is ready to put in all the efforts required.

#4- Adapt to the needs

Along with the cab service, GrabTaxi introduced premium sedan cars, bikes and package delivery services. While it appears that the additions will eat into the primary business, they found their relevance at different spots in the life cycle of a typical user.

For travel startups, it is important to diversify according to the needs of customers.

#5- Make people believe in the cause

GrabTaxi started off with a mission to make public transport safe, efficient, fast and reliable. These were genuine problems faced by the customers and addressing these issues helped them gain the goodwill of customers.

Your business shouldn’t be about profits and monetization opportunities from day one. If you are solving a real problem, people will believe in you and will receive your product well.

You can find more stories of other sessions as well as all the other activities at TravelRave here.

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On-demand taxi hailing services in India are catching up well despite the roadblocks they are facing along the way. Every now and then we find ourselves using apps like Ola cabs, TaxiForSure and Uber. People already have their favourites but at times they are left navigating between different apps to book a cab due to non-availability. With so many options available to us, it is usually not a very smooth experience.

We recently came across a startup called OyeTaxi which seems to fix this problem. OyeTaxi is aggregating the cab providers in one place. So you don’t have to switch between multiple apps on the go to check which one is available or which one will arrive early. It also gives you other details as like the fares (including surge prices) and ETA.

OyeTaxi was started in July 2015 by a bunch of 4 individuals with years of experience in the internet domain. Vipul, Anuj and Nitesh come from top engineering institutes while the fourth team member, Karan is pursuing his MBA from ISB Hyderabad.

We tried the OyeTaxi app for over a week and it surely scores well in terms of usability. As soon as you launch the app, it picks your location in no time and lists down all the available options. By default the options are listed according to the cab providers but you can choose to list them according to the estimated time of arrival. At this moment you can see Ola cabs, Uber, TaxiForSure and Meru cabs listed on OyeTaxi but we have been told by Vipul that they are in talks with more players in this space to get them on-board. You can directly book an Ola through the OyeTaxi app while for others you are directed to their respective app to book. The UI of the app isn’t something you can call amazing but it is neat and functional.

At this point the startup is targeting to expand its user base rather than focussing on commissions. It is also working to get other operators on-board and offer direct booking on the app itself similar to Ola to offer a seamless experience. Going forward OyeTaxi plans to add options like car-pooling and outstation cabs on the platform.

There are few other apps already available on the Play store that aggregate the cab services on a single platform. However Vipul pointed out that OyeTaxi offers real-time updates on fares including surge prices which isn’t available with any of the competitors.

The OyeTaxi app is available only for Android devices right now. You can download it here.

TravHQ Take

With rising competition among on-demand cab apps in India, OyeTaxi seems to be a good fit for all consumers looking for instant cabs. While aggregation of all operators is critical, the problem that most commuters in India face with on-demand taxi apps is failed repeated requests. If OyeTaxi can ensure fast experience and take a tip or two from GrabTaxi’s success, who knows, we might just have a metasearch for Taxis

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Didi Kuaidi, a company made by merging China’s two largest taxi-hailing firms – Didi Dache & Kuaidi Dache, has invested in Ola– the biggest cab rental brand of India. Through this association the Chinese brand challenges its US rival Uber Technologies.

The size of the investment has not been disclosed but Didi Kuaidi states that the funds will help Ola expand, especially in smaller towns. Some sources estimate the investment to be around $30 million but none of the companies have confirmed the same. According to Ola they have 80% market share making them the biggest and the most influential player in the sector.

Didi Kuaidi spokesperson stated:

“Didi Kuaidi believes both India and China are rapidly developing countries with enormous market potential… Didi Kuaidi looks to engage local industry champions like Ola to share technology and best practices in product development and operational expertise – all honed from deep market data-driven operations.”

Ola spokesperson quoted:

“We welcome Didi Kuaidi as an investor in Ola. We look forward to exchange learnings from two of the world’s largest markets and the tremendous synergies this partnership can bring, towards our commitment of building mobility for a billions of Indians.”

Ola attempts to cautiously use this fund for various programmes. It has already included services like expanded mobile wallet and Wi-Fi enabled cars. Surprisingly, the two giants – Didi Kuaidi and Ola – have many common investors like SoftBank and Tiger Global Management.

This is not the first such investment by the Chinese brand. It had invested $100 million in Lyft, a San-Francisco based ridesharing company. It had also financed GrabTaxi, a South-East Asian cab-hire brand, with a sum of $350 million. Talking about investments, Ola had raised $400 million from DST Global investors earlier this year.

Didi Kuaidi is funding many cab-hire brands internationally that concentrate on local strategies. While they remain focused at their home market China for their business, they are putting money on other companies doing the same in other countries so that they can match Uber internationally.

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