Grab is a Southeast Asia’s number one multi-service app. Grab is a Singapore-based technology company which offers its services in Singapore and neighbouring Southeast Asia. Grab is the region’s first “decacorn” which means a startup with a valuation of over US$10 billion. According to sensortower, Grab is the second most downloaded ride-sharing app in the world after Uber, in the year 2018.

Story behind Grab

Anthony Tan came up with an idea of creating a taxi-booking app for Southeast Asia similar to the model that existed in the US. He is the youngest of the three brothers of the family that operates Tang Chong Motors and are the authorized distributors of Nissan cars in Malaysia.

He was inspired by Garrett Camp’s ride-sharing concept, Anthony took up the project while he was studying at Harvard Business School. The project, however, seemed difficult to be implemented but won second place at the Business Plan Contest at Harvard Business School. The same app was also selected as the finalist at Harvard’s Minimum Viable Product Funding award.

In 2012, Anthony Tan quit his position as the head of marketing of his family business and launched “My Teksi” app in Malaysia which is called “GrabTaxi” in other countries. Anthony’s classmate, Tan Hooi Ling who was a consultant at Mckinsey & Company drew a business plan for the promotion of the mobile app. My Teksi received an initial grant of $25000 from Harvard Business School and Anthony’s personal capital. He became the CEO of the company and after a lot of failures, he met with a taxi company who had a fleet of only 30 taxis decided to give him a chance.

According to TechCrunch Grab has recently gained the SoftBank Vision Fund. It announced that it has pulled $1.46 billion investment from the super fund. They want to use the money to enhance the super app strategy. The app’s strategy is to become a daily app for every Southeast Asian customer.

The deal has taken Grab’s ongoing Series H round to $4.5 billion. The investors who are included in that round are Toyota, Booking Holdings, Microsoft and Hyundai. This deal denotes that Grab has now raised over $7.5 billion to date. As per the last valuation, Grab was valued at $11 billion. According to the new reports, Grab is now valued at $14 billion.

Grab’s motto is to bring people together. They want to provide more employment opportunities and make travelling comfortable and safer for everyone. They try to solve real-world problems with technology and efficient solutions. They believe the user needs do not stop only at transportation, hence, in order to try and help everyone in every way they came up with the idea of a multi-service app with the aim of moving forward together.

They believe the drivers are partners and hence the drivers have an app called GrabDriver through which they can check and complete their rides.

In 2014, Grab moved its company headquarters from Malaysia to Singapore and later Anthony Tan also acquired Singaporean citizenship. Grab has its services active in Singapore and other Southeast Asian nations Malasia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.

In November 2014, GrabTaxi launched GrabBike service in Ho Chi Minh city as a trail service. By 2015, GrabBikes have expanded to Vietnam and Indonesia and also provide medical insurance for the passengers and drivers. The company also launched GrabCar+ which provides a fleet of high-end cars in the Philippines.

Grab is supposed to open a  new major development centre and office in Seattle to serve as a tech hub and at the same time attract the talent in the United States.

Services provided by Grab that you can include while developing your Grab clone app.

Grab Rides:

• JustGrab:Car or taxi at an affordable upfront fixed fare.
• GrabCar, GrabCar 6:Everyday private car or luxury ride; ride solo or with a crew up to 3 or 6; book a single ride or rent by the hour
• GrabBike:On-demand bike service
• GrabTaxi:Get a taxi anywhere, anytime at a fixed rate
• GrabShare:Share your ride and save money
• GrabTrike:Three-wheeled transport option
• GrabHitch:Social carpooling
• GrabFamily:Family-friendly ride with a baby seat for your little ones
• GrabAssist:Extra assistance whenever you book a ride for senior citizens or people with disabilities
• GrabCoach:Book a minivan or bus

Food delivery

» GrabFood: Order and get food delivered at your doorstep.

Parcel delivery

» GrabExpress: Courier service with insurance for your items.

Grocery delivery

» GrabFresh: Groceries delivered from store to door within an hour or at a scheduled time.

Cashless payments

» GrabPay: A safe and secure mobile wallet to pay for your rides, food delivery, and at local merchants.

Rewards

» GrabRewards: Earn points to redeem awesome deals.

Grab basically wanted to compete Uber. However, in Southeast Asia, it has the emerging startup Go-Jek as in the neck to neck competition. The news of fundraising of Grab in Series H round comes just after a day of the news came about Go-Jek announced $100 million injections in its ongoing series H fund.

Go-Jek is headquartered in Indonesia but, over the past six months, it is spreading its services to Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore with the Philippines also in its plans.

With startup companies like Grab and Go-Jek becoming popular among the people of Southeast, you too can definitely jump in and join the competition with all your sharpened weapons as now you are aware of what your competition is providing.

In order to succeed, you need to prove yourself better at all the services that these companies are providing. You need to have a super cool multi-service app like Grab with better features and better services.

Coruscate has a talented research team which keeps a tab on the updates happening in ride-sharing services and multi-service platforms. We can suggest you some unique features which will not just make your business stand out but also gain your more and more customers with thousands of app downloads.

Get in touch with us to discuss the pricing and features further. We can deploy the best technology and development practices for you and make your business rank first across Southeast Asia.