Singapore-headquartered ride-hailing company Grab launched its innovation arm Grab Ventures on Tuesday, June 5, according to a Reuters report.
Grab Ventures aims to develop technology start-ups in sectors such as transport, food services, logistics and financial services to expand the company's services beyond ride-hailing.
"We have articulated our vision to be the everyday app of Southeast Asia, so we are interested in any tech that enables that vision in terms of becoming a complete O2O (online-to- offline) mobile platform," Chris Yeo, head of Grab Ventures, told Reuters.
Yeo added that Grab Ventures could look to develop businesses in-house or work with existing start-ups. The new arm's current portfolio includes self-driving technology firm Drive.ai and Indonesian payments service Kudo.
Over the next 24 months, Grab Ventures aims to seek to partner eight ot ten growth-stage start-ups and hopes to invest in a few.
It will also work with government agencies across the region to support such companies by offering services such as development and scaling of technologies. In addition, Grab Ventures may also look for private-sector partners.
Its accelerator program partners with government agencies such as the Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore and Enterprise Singapore to provide expertise, technical resources and networks to the start-ups.
