Ride-hailing firm Grab is standing tall against rival Uber in a recent bid to raise $2.5 billion in new investments. According to the latest reports, Didi Chuxing, Uber's biggest rival in China, and the company that eventually put it out of business in the region is now one of Grab's biggest backers. In fact, Didi has pledged to invest a total of $2 billion and the remaining $500 billion coming from Grab's current and investors.
Didi Chuxing, formerly known as Didi Kuaidi is a ride-sharing company that services over 400 million customers in China.
Despite shutting down Grab, the company is willing to invest as the latter plans to expand in the South East Asian regions. This new investment will not be limited to the company's ride-hailing services. Instead, it will delegate its funds to its other service; the GrabPay.
According to BBC, Grab's bid to bring a substantial investment in Indonesia brought the idea of buying Indonesia's e-commerce business for the staggering amount of $700 million. Anthony Tan, Grab chief executive officer acknowledged Didi Chuxing investment saying, "With their support, Grab will achieve an unassailable market lead in ridesharing, and build on this to make GrabPay the payment solution of choice for Southeast Asia."
Other investors aside from Didi
Meanwhile, USNews also reported that Didi Chuxing's initiative to support grab with billions of investment is not without the backing of Japan's Softbank.
The bank also backed Grab's bid to raise at least $750 million in September to become the largest car and motorbike hailing company in the region of Southeast Asia. As Grab concentrates on its ride-hailing services, Uber is trying to fix an issue that has to do with stealing Google's intellectual property on self-driving cars.
Uber's series of scandals
Alphabet, Google's sister company filed a restraining order against Uber, preventing the company from using its Waymo's idea of self-driving cars. With the case still unresolved, Uber is facing another challenge as Grab expands and target Uber's primary service concept. Apparently, Uber's departure from China brought them the boost they needed in order to get a stronghold in the said Asian region.
Uber has not yet released an official statement regarding Grab's new investment, but one thing is for sure, the American ride-hailing technology is still busy attending to its series of scandals. Recently, Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down amid pressure from the company's biggest investors.