Alibaba could significantly increase its product line and business interests in Southeast Asia with an investment in Uber rival Grab.
Bloomberg reports that President of Alibaba Jack Ma is taking into consideration to join an upcoming $1.4 billion funding round for Grab which will be led by SoftBank, a company with loads of links to Alibaba. Separately, NetMag has confirmed with a source that Alibaba has held some meetings with Grab over a prospective investment that could see Alipay, the mobile payment facility run by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, integrated into the Grab app. It seems that Alibaba is eager to have a closer association with Grab’s payment platform ‘GrabPay’.
Grab refuse to comment. Alibaba did not respond to a demand for comment.
Singapore-based Grab’s latest funding was a $750 million Series F at an estimation of $3 billion in September 2016. The corporation, which now turned five, claims that they have 45 million downloads, over 900,000 drivers, and 2.5 million rides on a daily basis across seven countries.
It isn’t yet obvious whether an investment would come from Ant Financial or Alibaba— both have eventful brokering deals to get an early grip in Southeast Asia’s rising internet space. Alibaba gets a hold by having the majority of ownership e-commerce firm Lazada which is Southeast Asia-based, whereas Ant Financial has struck deals with finance-focused company Mynt (Philippines) Ascend and Money (Thailand) in the state, and it initiated a joint-venture to present financial services in Indonesia.
Due to Alibaba’s interest in Grab is one more sign that its arch-rival Tencent are making new rivalries in Southeast Asia, a region where the internet economy is inclined to rush forward to $200 billion per year over the next decade, and further parts of Asia.
While Tencent has settled a deal that will see it lead a $1.2 billion investment in Go-Jek, a startup in competition with Uber and Grab in Indonesia. Sources close to the deal told us that Alibaba and Ant Financial had been talking with the company but eventually Tencent overcome. Go-Jek has not publicized the latest financing yet.
The competition is extra sharp in India, where Tencent-backed home-based Amazon rival Flipkart in a backing round that included a contribution from Microsoft and eBay. In the meantime, Alibaba has chosen payment and e-commerce firm Paytm as its substitute in the country.
Both Alibaba and Ant Financial made many investments in the firm earlier than SoftBank pumping a huge $1.4 billion investment into Paytm previous month. Given their contribution in Paytm, it isn’t a colossal shock that these three big names are in the mix for Grab.
