As ride-hailing giant Grab integrates Uber's regional business and expands into bike-sharing and digital payments, the company expects to double its revenue in 2019 from more than US$1 billion (S$1.38 billion) this year.
The company is looking to build an "everyday app" that provides services from ride-hailing to food delivery and other day-to-day consumer services, such as finance and healthcare.
Co-founder Hooi Ling Tan said at Bloomberg's Sooner Than You Think conference in Singapore, that Grab is on track to raise US$3 billion of funding before the end of this year. This includes US$1 billion from Toyota Motor – it is also the Japanese automaker’s biggest investment in ride-hailing to date.
Singapore-based Grab is expanding rapidly throughout a South-east Asian region home to more than 600 million people, leveraging a much bigger network after buying out Uber’s operations in the region this year.
“There’s more greenfield than in any other region in the world because technology hasn’t been able to truly shape the lives of the South-east Asia region yet,” Ms Tan said. Grab also aims to increase its operational presence in Indonesia, moving fast against Jakarta-based Go-Jek.
Earlier this year in March, Grab launched GrabCycle, a marketplace for bike-sharing services, as well as e-scooter rental service Popscoot. “There’s a huge opportunity right now. We can decide to invest, go big now, just so that we can reap the market that’s ripe vis-a-vis growing organically and slower,” Ms Tan said.
“We want to set up a multi-generation company,” she added.
