Japanese financial services company Tokyo Century on Monday announced an undisclosed investment in Singapore-headquartered Grab, pushing the total capital commitments received in the latter’s ongoing Series H round to above $3 billion.
According to an official statement, Tokyo Century has made a capital investment in Grab’s car rental arm, Grab Rentals, in addition to a strategic investment in Grab itself.
Tokyo Century had previously invested in Grab in 2016 and 2018. It has now invested a total of $175 million into Grab, including funding for its rental business.
“Tokyo Century will leverage its financial expertise accumulated over many years in Japan through Grab’s platform to address increasingly demanding and diverse needs of the ride-hailing industry. With the latest investment, Grab Rentals will further improve its driver-partners’ experience by expanding its product offerings including flexible-term rentals and an upcoming electric vehicle fleet,” the Japanese firm said in a statement.
Grab declined to comment on its current valuation, but confirmed that it has received capital commitments of above $3 billion so far. It was valued at $11 billion after raising funding as part of the Series H round in August 2018.
The ride-hailing giant currently has a wide range of investors on its cap table, including Toyota, Hyundai, Yamaha, Microsoft, KASIKORNBANK, Booking Holdings, OppenheimerFunds and Ping An Capital.
A timeline of Grab’s Series H fundraising:
- June 2018: $1 billion from Toyota
- August 2018: $1 billion from investors including OppenheimerFunds, Ping An Capital, Vulcan Capital, Macquarie Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners
- October 2018: Undisclosed investment from Microsoft
- October 2018: $200 million from the parent of Bookings.com
- November 2018: $250 million from Hyundai, Kia Motors
- November 2018: $50 million from KASIKORNBANK
- December 2018: $150 million from Yamaha
In December, DEALSTREETASIA exclusively reported that Grab is seeking to raise up to $5 billion in an expanded Series H round, way above its original target of $3 billion.
This came amidst reports from TechCrunch and Reuters that SoftBank was close to investing $1-1.5 billion in Grab from its SoftBank Vision Fund. According to TechCrunch, this was is contingent on SoftBank Group Corp transferring its existing stake in the ride-hailing firm to the Vision Fund.
Meantime Grab’s rival, Go-Jek, is currently also oversubscribed in its current fundraising efforts.
In an exclusive report by DEALSTREETASIA, Go-Jek received commitments of close to $2 billion for its latest investment round, above its original target of $1.5 billion. According to the report, its existing investors, Google, Tencent and JD.com are all re-investing in the company, whose valuation will climb to nearly $10 billion.
Also Read:
Singapore’s Grab said to seek up to $5b in expanded Series H round
SoftBank Vision Fund in talks to invest $1.5b in Southeast Asia’s Grab