Grab Secures $2 Billion in New Investment From Didi Chuxing and SoftBank

Didi Chuxing and SoftBank are investing a combined $2 billion in Grab as more companies begin to invest in the ride-hail business. Didi and SoftBank have invested in Grab in the past in 2015 and 2014 respectively.

Grab is a taxi-hailing service that operates in Southeast Asia. The company also expects to raise an additional $500 million from other investors in this round. If Grab is successful with these new rounds of investments, its total valuation may top $6 billion in total.

Didi has invested in other ride-hailing companies before including Lyft and India’s Ola. They also recently led a $100 million funding round for Brazil’s ride-hail app called 99.

“We are delighted to deepen our strategic partnership with DiDi and SoftBank. We’re encouraged that these two visionary companies share our optimism for the future of Southeast Asia and its on-demand transportation and payments markets,” said Anthony Tan, cofounder of Grab. “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.”

Grab was funded in 2012 and offers ride-hailing services including cars, taxis and even vehicles designed for family safety. It1.1 million users and is in competition with other similar apps such as Uber. Grab will use the new funding to scale its services to more countries and focus resources into its new payment system GrabPay.

SoftBank is a Japanese-based telecommunications and internet software company that earlier this year launched a $93 billion investment fund.

Didi Chuxing, formerly Didi Kuaing, is a ride-hail service in China that boasts over 300 million users.