Japan telco Softbank invests $250m in GrabTaxi
A cyclist weaves through heavy traffic during the morning rush hour in Bangkok, Thailand. Pic: AP.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Japanese telecommunications and Internet company Softbank Corp. has invested $250 million in one of Southeast Asia’s top taxi app services, GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd.
The companies said in a joint statement Thursday that this will make Softbank the largest investor in GrabTaxi, a startup launched in Malaysia in 2012 that now operates in 17 cities in six Southeast Asian countries.
GrabTaxi Chief Executive Anthony Tan said SoftBank’s partnership will bring total investment in the company to almost $340 million.
GrabTaxi, together with its units called GrabCar and GrabBike, let users book private cars and registered taxis, as well as motorbikes in Vietnam with their smartphones.
The investment is a boost to GrabTaxi, which competes with other taxi booking apps such as Uber and Easy Taxi.
READ MORE
- Trustworthy AI – the Promise of Enterprise-Friendly Generative Machine Learning with Dell and NVIDIA
- Strategies for Democratizing GenAI
- The criticality of endpoint management in cybersecurity and operations
- Ethical AI: The renewed importance of safeguarding data and customer privacy in Generative AI applications
- How Japan balances AI-driven opportunities with cybersecurity needs